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THE 

ILLUSTEATED 

HISTORY OF THE BIBLE: 



FROM 



THE CREATION OF THE WORLD 



TO 



THE CLOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC EEA. 



BEING 



A FULL AND COMPLETE ACCOUNT 



OF THE 



EVENTS NARRATED U THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 



BY 



WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D., 

CLASSICAL EXAMINER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON; AUTHOR OF "SMITHS 
DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE," li STUDENTS' HISTORIES," ETC., ETC. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF THE DISPERSION, FROM THE TAKING OF 
JERUSALEM BY TITUS, DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME ; 

ABRIDGED FROM "MILMAN'S HISTORY OF THE JEWS." 

EDITED BY 

REV. ARTHUR P. HAYES. 



EMBELLISHED WITH 200 FINE ENGRAVINGS AND MAPS. 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

AND 

JONES, JUNKIN & CO. 



n 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

J. R. JOSE S, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington, D. C. 




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PREFACE. 



HE study of the Sacred Scriptures is not only a recog- 
nized duty on the part of Christian men and women, 
# but it is also a source of great pleasure. The 
general reader, however, must find many difficulties 
in his perusal of the inspired narrative. The history 
of the Israelites is so interwoven with that of other nations, 
that a knowledge of the history of the ancient world is 
absolutely essential to the proper understanding of the Bible 
story. In order to gain this information, it becomes neces- 
sary to resort to other works, and this requires much time 
and study. The ordinary reader of the Bible is cut off from 
such sources of knowledge, and finds himself utterly unable 
to comprehend some of the most interesting portions of the 
sacred story. Only a comparatively few persons of leisure 
and learning have access to these sources of knowledge. 

Of late years, the great interest manifested, and the great 
progress made in Bible studies, have rendered it necessary, 
that some general and comprehensive work on the subject 
shall be offered to the public ; that there shall be within 
reach of the Bible Student some manual which, while rela- 
ting the full and entire story of the Scriptures, shall also 
present the history of other nations, an account of their 
manners and customs, and a description of the countries 
adjacent to the Holy Land (or in which the Chosen People at 
any time dwelt), in so far as such information is necessary 
to an intelligent understanding of the sacred narrative. 
Such a book, it is confidently asserted, is offered to the Ameri- 
can public in the present volume. 

(iii) 



iv PREFACE. 

The Author, Dr. Smith, is well known throughout the 
world for his Classical and Biblical learning, and it is be- 
lieved that he is the best qualified writer now living for the 
task which he has undertaken. 

The Old Testament story is told clearly and comprehen- 
sively, and a full and valuable explanation of the laws and 
customs of the Israelites is appended at the close of the 
volume. The geography of the Holy Land forms an inter- 
esting feature of the work. 

The history of the Maccabsean Wars, and of the period 
intervening between the close of the Old Testament dispen- 
sation and the beginning of the New, will be found not only 
interesting but valuable, enabling the reader to connect the 
two portions of the Bible intelligently and satisfactorily. 

The New Testament history embraces not only a clear, 
harmonized account of our Lord's Ministry, as related by the 
four evangelists, illustrated by all needful collateral informa- 
tion, and free from speculative discussions ; but pains have 
been taken to simplify all chronological difficulties, and to 
meet by a plain statement of facts, the obstacles which 
superstition, on the one hand, and skepticism, on the other, 
have thrown in the way of the seeker after truth. 

The history of the Apostolic era presents a completeness 
not previously attained in any similar work. The method 
in which Paley led the way of using the Epistles of St. Paul, 
not only to supply the incidents omitted in the Acts, but to 
set the Apostle's spirit and character in a vivid light, has 
been followed throughout. Similar use has been made of the 
Epistles of Peter, John, and James; and this section of the 
work is completed by a summary of all that is really known 
both of the Apostles and of the persons associated with them 
in the history. The unity of this part is preserved by 
brin<rintr it down to the destruction of Jerusalem; and that 
catastrophe, which is elsewhere related as an historic event, 
is here exhibited in the light of our Lord's great prophecy, 
as the epoch of His coming in the full establishment of the 
Christian Church. 



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THE 
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I . Judah.. 

I I . Simeon. 

III. Benjamin.. 

IV. Dan.. 

V. E;pnraim. 

VI. ManassehL 

VII. Issachar. 
Vlll.Zebulan. 

IX. Ashen. 

X. Naphtali. 

XI. Gaa. 

XII. B.exQ>en. 



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PREFACE. v 

The narrative of the secular history of the Jews is then 
resumed, from the death of Herod the Great, and brought 
down to the present time. These concluding chapters of the 
work have been condensed from Dean Milman's magnificent 
" History of the Jews." 

The whole work has been carefully revised, and prepared 
for circulation in this country ; and though the notes and 
references of the English edition have been generally omitted, 
enough have been retained for the substantial assistance of 
the reader, and the value of the text has been in nowise im- 
paired. It is believed that in its present form the book will 
best meet the wants of Bible readers in this country, and 
that it will be of service to them at every stage of their 
devotional readings. 

To those engaged in teaching the truths of religion — to 
teachers in the Sabbath Schools, of Bible classes, of secular 
schools — it will be found of unusual value for the simple 
and ready instruction which it contains. It appeals to no 
sect, but is addressed to the whole Christian Church — to all 
who " profess the faith of Christ crucified ;" and it is believed 
that it will meet with a readv and cordial welcome from all. 
That it will contribute its share to the advancement of the 
Gospel, and to the firmer grounding of the truths of Chris- 
tianity in the hearts of its readers, is most earnestly hoped. 

New York, 

May 1st, 18U. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



1. The Crucifixion Frontispiece. 

2. General Map of the Countries mentioned in the Bible page 3 

3. Map of the Holy Land in the time of David 5 

4. Map of the Holy Land in the time of Christ 6 

5. (xarden of Eden 23 

6. The Sacrifice of Abel 28 

7. JabaPs Tents and Cattle 29 

8. The Ark 3G 

9. The Dove 39 

10. The Bow of Promise 40 

11. The Tower of Babel 46 

12. Abraham's Encampment 52 

13. Abimelech restoring Sarah 54 

14. A Pillar of Salt Gl 

15. II agar and Ishmael 62 

16. Abraham and Isaac 64 

17. Abraham and the Sons of Heth (jo 

18. Rebekah and Eliezer 66 

19. Isaac meeting Rebekah G7 

20. Burial of Abraham 69 

21. Esau going for Venison. ... 71 

22. Jacob obtains the Blessing 72 

23. Jacob's Vision . 72 

24. The Veil 74 

25. Jacob fleeing from Laban 75 

26. The Heap of Witness 76 

27. Rachel's Tomb T. 78 

28. Joseph and his Brethren 80 

29. Joseph's Dream 81 

30. Joseph sold by his Brethren 83 

31. Joseph treats his Brethren roughly 85 

32. Putting the Cup in Benjamin's Sack 87 

33. Joseph's Forgiveness 8S 

34. Egyptian Mummies 91 

35. Embalming the Body of Joseph 07 

36. Luxor, from the River Nile 

37. The Pyramids of Egypt 100 

38. Israelites laboring in Egypt 101 

39. Finding of Moses 102 

40. Moses' Rod turned into a Serpent 107 

vi 



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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. vii 

41. Ancient Statues of Memnon, in the Plain of Thebes 108 

42. Portico of an Egyptian Temple 110 

43. The Plague of Hail 116 

44. The Locust 117 

45. Unleavened Bread , . . . - 119 

46. Map showing the Wanderings of the Israelites 122 

47. The Edge of the Wilderness 124 

48. The Pillar of Fire 125 

49. The Camp of Israel 127 

50. Moses receiving the Tables of the Law 130 

51. The Wilderness of Sinai 133 

52. The Tabernacle 135 

53. The Molten Calf : 136 

54. The Holy Place 13S 

55. South-East View of the Tabernacle 139 

56. The Coverings 140 

57. Emblems on the Standards of the Tribes 142 

58. Consecration of Aaron and his Sons 143 

59. The. Wilderness of Sin 146 

60. Grapes brought back by the Spies 151 

61. The Israelites defeated by the Canaanites 153 

62. Aaron's Rod that budded 156 

63. First Fruits 160 

64. National Sin-offering 161 

65. The Brazen Serpent 163 

66. The Scape Goat 165 

67. The High-Priest 168 

68. Sin-Offering of the Poor 169 

69. Balaam and Balak 171 

70. Gathering Manna 173 

71. Mount Lebanon 182 

72. The Dead Sea 185 

73. View of Nablus and Mount Gerizim from the North- West 186 

74. The Syrian Ox 187 

75. The Syrian Goat 189 

76. The Wild Ass 191 

77. Jordan 192 

78. Mount Tabor 193 

79. House on the Wall of a City 196 

80. Rahab concealing the Spies 197 

81. Plain of Jericho 200 

82. Panoramic Plan of the Country of the Tribes of Issachar, Ephraim, 

Manasseh, Dan and Benjamin, in Palestine 204 

83. Panoramic Plan of the Country of the Tribes of Judah and Simeon. 207 

84. Panoramic Plan of the Country of the Tribes of Asher, Naphtali, 

Zebulun, and Manasseh, in Palestine 209 

85. City of Refuge 213 

86. Joshua's Covenant with Israel * 216 

87. Ruth and Naomi 225 

88. Ruth gleaning in the Field of Boaz 22G 

89. Gideon's Fleece 234 

90. Jephthah met by his Daughter 241 

91. Samson's Riddle 24S 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIOXS. 

92. Dagon 252 

93. Dedication of Samuel 255 

94. The Singers of the Temple Service 256 

95. Samuel and Eli 257 

96. Moab 259 

97. Samuel anointing Saul 204 

98. David keeping his Father's Flocks 270 

99. Samuel anointing David 273 

100. The Sweet Psalmist 275 

101. A Slinger 278 

102. Shew-Bread 283 

103. Skin Bottles 288 

101. An Eastern Tent 289 

105. Hebron 293 

106. Map of Ancient Jerusalem 297 

107. Jerusalem in the Time of David, as seen from the South 300 

108. David brings up the Ark of God to Jerusalem 303 

109. The Ark 305 

110. The Laver 307 

111. David's Tower at Jerusalem 309 

112. Altar of Burnt-Offerings 312 

113. Altar of Sacrifice ' 314 

114. Ancient Musical Instruments 316 

115. The Yalley of Jehoshaphat 321 

116. David pardons Absalom 323 

117. Tomb of Absalom in the Yalley of Jehoshaphat 327 

118. Death of Absalom 32S 

119. Furniture of the Temple 328 

120. David's Return to his Kingdom 331 

121. Isometrical Elevation of Solomon's Temple 342 

122. The Brazen Laver 345 

123. The Molten Sea 347 

124. The Golden Lamp-Bearer. 348 

125. Altar of Incense 350 

126. Fire from Heaven at the Dedication of the Temple 351 

127. Ruins of Tadmor 354 

128. Tyre 356 

129. Eastern Casement 359 

130. Defeat of the Israelites by the Children of Judah 362 

131. Buins of the Golden Gate at Jerusalem 363 

132. Samaria 371 

133. Elijah fed by Bavens 376 

134. Elijah's Sacrifice 377 

135. The Shunammite's Son 378 

136. Elijah casting his Mantle on Elisha * 380 

137. Mount Carmel 383 

138. Moses before Pharaoh's Daughter 390 

I.'jO. Enthronement of Joash 400 

140. Joash shooting Arrows from a Window at the Command of Elisha. 404 

141. Israelites carried Captive 421 

142. An Assyrian King 425 

143. Pool of Hczekiah 428 

144. Ancient Sundial 430 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ix 

145. Moloch 432 

146. Specimens of Ancient Writings on Sticks 435 

147. Jewish Captives in Babylonia 444 

148. Babylonish Conquerors putting out the Eyes of Zedekiah 451 

149. Jeremiah mourning over Jerusalem 452 

150. Zedekiah before the King of Babylon 452 

151. Camels 454 

152. Ancient Babylon 459 

153. Cyrus entering Babylon 463 

154. Lions of Syria 468 

155. Tomb of Cyrus 471 

156. Priests blessing the People after the Restoration of the Temple Ser- 

vices 472 

157. Tomb of Esther and Mordecai 479 

158. Walls of Jerusalem 482 

159. Street in Jerusalem 483 

160. Mount Zion .' 489 

161. Royal Palace at Nineveh 492 

162. The High-Priest in Full Dress 494 

163. The Breastplate of the High-Priest 495 

164. Shekel of the Sanctuary 500 

165. Cedars of Lebanon 507 

166. Ancient Jewish Shields and Spears 512 

167. Ancient Swords 513 

168. Leather Cuirass 514 

169: Burnt Sacrifice at the Feast of the Dedication 515 

170. Coat of Mail 516 

171. Battle of Adasa 519 

172. Judas Maccabseus and his Warriors 520 

173. Sitting under the Vine 525 

174. Gaza 537 

175. Trumpets 539 

176. Asmonsean Coins 541 

177. The Palm Groves of Jericho 544 

178. The Race 554 

179. Outer Court of the Temple 560 

180. " Behold the Lamb of God. " 569 

181. Bethlehem 576 

182. Simeon and Anna in the Temple 579 

183. Nazareth 583 

184. Jesus disputing with the Doctors 584 

185. Lazarus at the Rich Man's Gate 591 

186. Fountain of Cana 597 

187. Ancient Banquet 599 

188. The Woman of Samaria 608 

189. Lepers worshipping Christ 619 

190. Sidon G25 

191. The Disciples plucking Corn 628 

192. Jesus teaching on the Mount 631 

193. Coast of Tyre and Sidon 637 

194. Christ eating Bread with the Publicans 639 

195. Sea of Galilee from the North-West Coast ; with Magdala and Ti- 

berias 611 



x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

196. Peter Saved by Jesus ... 045 

197. The Good Shepherd 657 

198. Mary hath chosen that Good Part 658 

199. Christ raising Lazarus 660 

200. Christ weeping over Jerusalem 666 

201. Mount of Olives 674 

. Gethsemane 681 

203. Christ before Pilate 0-7 

204. The Ascension 7 I 

905. Peter and John healing the Lame Man 710 

206. Ancient Harbor of Cresarea 723 

207. Tarsus 726 

_ 3. Conversion of Saul 732 

209. Damascus 735 

210. House with a Parapet 745 

211. Antioch 748 

212. Ancient Writing Materials 750 

213. Ancient Book and Stylus 751 

214. Paul and Barnabas at Antioch 753 

215. Court of an Eastern House , 759 

216. Eastern Divan 769 

217. Smyrna 772 

218. St. Paul in the Stocks at Philippi 770 

219. The Acropolis at Athens , as it was 781 

220. Corinth 792 

221. The Syrian Eox 807 

222. Paul parting from his Disciples 818 

223. Paul before Agrippa and Festue 625 

224. Ancient Ships' 632 

225. Chart of part of the Coast of Malta S30 

226. Piuins of the Coliseum, at Rome 840 

227. Stairs of the Modern Capitol at Rome 849 

22-. Colossae - 865 

229. Christian "Women making Garments for the Poor 891 

230. Thyatira 901 

231. AVine Press 905 

232. Ancient Tables 912 

233. Laodicea 915 

234. Timothy's Instructors 921 

235. Tiberias and Lake, looking to the Xorth-East 93S 

236. Roman Soldier ,. 943 

237. Jerusalem and its Valleys 948 

238. The Catapult, a Machine for throwing Heavy Darts 

239. Battering Ram and Tower 969 

240. Despair of the Defenders of Jerusalem 973 

241. Coin, struck by the Emperor Vespasian, commemorating the 

nquest of Juda?a 961 

242. Jews' Wailing-Place 

243. Capernaum 994 



CONTENTS. 



TIIE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. FROM THE CREATION TO THE 
RETURN OF THE JEWS FROM CAPTIVITY. 



BOOK I. 

FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM. THE PROBATION OF THE HUMAN RACE. 

A. m. 1—2008. b. c. 4004—1996. 

CHAPTER I. 

man's probation and fall. 

Purpose and scope of Scripture history — The universe created by God at a 
definite time — The order of the Creation — The rest of the seventh day — 
The Sabbath — Primeval state of man — Marriage— Paradise — Naming of the 
animals — Language — Spiritual perfection — The temptation and fall — Effects 
of the fall — God's judgment on the man, the woman, and the serpent — The 
name of Eve — Institution of the sacrifice — Dispensation of mercy — Birth 
of Cain and Abel — The murder of Abel — The punishment of Cain — His 
descendants — The race of Seth — Character of Enoch — His translation — 
Methuselah — Epoch of his death 21 

CHAPTER II. 

THE TIMES OF NOAH AND THE DELUGE. A. M. 1056— 200G. B. C. 2948—1998. 

Significance of Noah's name — State of the antediluvian world — The Sethite 
and Cainite races intermixed — Their progeny and the Nephilim — Interval 
of divine forbearance : God's resolve to destroy the world ; but to preserve 
the race of man for a new dispensation — Noah and his family — The Ark 
prepared— Noah enters the Ark— The Flood : its duration and subsidence 
— Question of a universal or partial Flood — In any case universal so far as 
man was concerned— Noah leaves the Ark — His sacrifice and God's bless- 
ing — The Noachic precepts — The Covenant with Noah: God's covenant of 
forbearance — Noah's blessing on Shem and Japheth and curse on Ham — 

His death 35 

(xi) 



xii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE PARTITION OF THE NATION'S. FROM THE DELUGE TO THE BIRTH OF ABRA- 
HAM. A. m. 1656—2008. b. c. 2348—1996. 

The peopling of the earth — Tripartite division of the nations from a centre in 
Armenia — Interpretation of the record in Genesis x. — The three great 
families : (i.) of Japheth ; (ii.) of Shem ; (iii.) of Ham — The city and tower 
of Babel — The confusion of tongues and dispersion from Babel — Nimrod's 
empire 43 



BOOK II. 

FROM THE BIRTH OF ABRAHAM TO THE DEATH OF JOSEPH, OR THE 
PROBATION OF THE CHOSEN FAMILY. A. M. 2008 — 2369. B. C. 

1996—1635. 

CHAPTER IV. 

HISTORY AND CALL OF ABRAM TO HIS 99TH YEAR, AND THE CHANGE OF HIS NAME. 

a. m. 2008—2106. b. c. 1996—1898. 
God's choice of a family — Genealogy of Terah — Birth of Abram — First call 
of Abram at Ur — Removal to Haran — Death of Terah — Abram's second 
call — His journey to Canaan and abode at Sichem — His removal to Bethel — 
Retreat to Egypt, and return to Bethel — His separation from Lot, and 
abode at Mamre, near Hebron — The third giving of the promise — The war 
of Sodom — Abram's rescue of Lot — Melchizedek — The promise of a son 
— The faith of Abraham — The Covenant made with him — Promise re- 
specting his descendants and their land — Hagar the Egyptian — Birth of 
Ishmael — Completion of the promise — The names of Abram and Sarai 
changed — Covenant of Circumcision — The birth of Isaac foretold 49 

CHAPTER V. 

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. FROM THE CHANGE OF ABRAHAM'S NAME. TO HIS DEATH. 

A. M. 2107-2182. b. c. 1897—1822. 
New relation of Abraham to God — Divine visit to him at Mamre — Destruc- 
tion of the cities of the plain— Rescue of Lot — Moab and Amnion — Abra- 
ham at Beersheba — His relations with Abimelech — Birth of Isaac — Expul- 
sion of Hagar and Ishmael — Offering of Isaac on the mountain of Moriah — 
Death of Sarah — The burying-place of Machpelah — The marriage of Isaac 
and Rebekah — Birth of Esau and Jacob — Death and burial of Abraham — 
Death of Ishmael 59 

CHAPTER VI. 

ISAAC AND JACOB. FROM THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM TO THE DEATH OF ISAAC. 

A. m. 2182—2288. b. c 1822—1716. 
Isaac at Lahai-roi — Esau sells his birthright — Isaac and Abimelech at Gerar — 
The blessings of Jacob and Esau — Moral aspect of the transaction — Jacob's 
danger from Esau, and flight to Padan-aram— His marriage to Leah and 
Rachel — His family — His service with Laban — His prosperity and depar- 
ture — Mahanaim — His prayer and wrestling at Peniel — His meeting with 
Esau — Abode at Shechem, and removal southward — Death of Rachel — 
Jacob at Mamre — Death and burial of Isaac 69 



CONTENTS. xm 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT. PROM THE SALE OP JOSEPH TO THE DEATH OP JO- 
SEPH. A. m. 2275—2369. b. c. 1729—1635. 

Joseph's early life — His two dreams — Hatred of his brethren — They sell him 
into Egypt — Joseph in Potiphar's house — Imprisonment of Joseph — Pha- 
raoh's cup-bearer and chief cook — Their dreams interpreted by Joseph — 
Pharaoh's two dreams — Joseph made ruler of Egypt — His name Zaphnath- 
paaneah — His marriage, and his two sons — His government of Egypt — The 
seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine — Joseph's brethren in 
Egypt — God's purpose in Israel's removal to Canaan — Jacob and his family 
go down to Egypt — Their numbers — Their interviews with Pharaoh and 
settlement in Goshen — Jacob's last years— His desire to be buried with his 
fathers — His blessing on Joseph and his sons — His prophetic address to his 
twelve sons, and their blessings — The twelve tribes now constituted — 
Death, embalmment, and burial of Jacob — Joseph's kindness to his breth- 
ren — Joseph's last prophecy and injunction — His death and burial — Death 
and burial of the other patriarchs — Interval between Joseph and Moses — 
Chronology of the pilgrimage in Canaan and Egypt 80 



BOOK III. 

FROM MOSES TO JOSHUA. THE EXODUS OF THE CHOSEN NATION, 
AND THE GIVING OF THE LAW FROM SINAI. A. M. 2404 — 2553. 

b. c 1600 (cir.)— 1451. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

TIIE EGYPTIAN BONDAGE AND THE MISSION OF MOSES TO THE EXODUS. A. M. 

2404—2513. b. c. 1600 (cir.)— 1491. 

The people of Israel oppressed — The birth and education of Moses — His 
choice to suffer with his people — His flight from Egypt and residence in 
Midian — God appears to him in the burning bush — The mission of Moses 
and Aaron to Israel and Pharaoh — Moses returns to Egypt and meets 
Aaron — Their reception by the people — Their first appeal to Pharaoh — 
Increase of the oppression — The renewal of Jehovah's covenant — The 
conflict with Pharaoh — The Ten Plagues of Egypt — Institution of the 
Passover — The death of the first-born of Egypt, and the exodus of the 
Israelites 99 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE MARCH PROM EGYPT TO SINAI. A. M. 2513-4. B. C. 1491-0. 

General view of the journey from Egypt to Canaan — Its three divisions : (i.) 
from Egypt to Sinai ; (ii.) from Sinai to the borders of Canaan ; (iii.) the 
wandering in the wilderness and the final march to Canaan — From Egypt 
to the Red Sea — Point of departure — Rameses — Succoth — Etham — Pi-hahi- 
roth — Passage of the Red Sea — Wilderness of Shur — Thirst — Marah — Elim 
— Encampment by the Red Sea — Wilderness of Sin — Hunger — The Manna — 
Revival of the Sabbath — Dophkah, Alush, and Rephidim — The water from 



xiv CONTEXTS. 

the rock — The battle with Amalek in Rephidhn — Jehovah- Nissi — Doom of 
Amalek — Visit of Jethro — Appointment of assistant judges — Wilderness of 
Sinai — Encampment before the Mount — Preparation — The people's place 
among the nations — Their covenant with Jehovah — God's descent on Sinai 
— The Ten Commandments — Other precepts given to Moses as Mediator — 
Promises — The angel Jehovah their Guide and Captain — Sinai and the 
Mount of the Beatitudes — The law given by angels — The covenant recorded 
and ratified by blood — The elders behold God's glory — Moses in the Mount 
— Idolatry of the golden calf — Intercession of Moses — The tables of the Law 
broken — Punishment — Fidelity of Levi — Self sacrifice of Moses — Type of 
the offering of Christ — God speaks with him before the people, and shows 
him his glory — Moses's second abode in the Mount — The tables renewed — 
The veil over his face — The Tabernacle prepared and set up — Consecration 
of Aaron and his sons — The glory of God upon and in the Tabernacle 121 

CHAPTER X. 

THE ADVANCE FROM SINAI, AND THE WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS. A. M. 

2314— 2022. b. c. 1490—1452. 

Numbering of the people — Order of the camp and march — Numbering of the 
first-born and of the Levites — Other events at Sinai — Purification of the 
camp — Order of Xazarites — Second Passover — Nadab and Abihu — The 
blasphemer stoned — Departure from Sinai — The route from Sinai — En- 
trance designed by way of Hebron — Wilderness of Paran — Taberah — Ki- 
broth-Hattaavah — Quails — Pestilence — Appointment of the seventy elders 
— Their gift of prophesying — Hazeroth — Sedition of Miriam and Aaron — 
Testimony to the meekness and fidelity of Moses — Kadesh-barnea — The 
spies sent out — Their return and report — Rebellion of the people — Fidelity 
of Caleb and Joshua — Defeat of Israel by the Amorites, Canaanites. and 
Amaiekites — Beginning of the thirty-eight } r ears' wanderings — Their direc- 
tion and object — The Sabbath-breaker stoned — Rebellion and fate of Ko- 
rah. Dathan, and Abiram, with 250 princes — The plague stayed by Aaron 
— The blossoming of Aaron's rod — The charge of the sanctuary given to 
the Levites * 141 

CHAPTER XI. 

FINAL MARCH FROM KADESn TO TnE JORDAN. DEATH OF MOSES. A. M. 2552 — 

255:]. b. c. 1452—1451. 
Last encampment at Kadesh — Death of Miriam — The sin and sentence of 
Moses and Aaron — A passage refused through Edom — March from Kadesh 
to Mount Ilor — Death of Aaron — Marcli down the Arabah and round 
Mount Seir — The fiery serpents and the brazen serpent — Arrival at the 
brook Zered — March throusrh the desert of Moab — Territories of Moab 
and Amnion — Conquests of Sihon and Og — Defeat and destruction of 
Sibon and Og — Last encampment on the plains of Moab — Balak and Ba- 
laam — New Census — Consecration of Joshua — Slaughter of the Midianitcs 
— Settlement of Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh east of Jordan — Final 
address of Moses — The Book of Deuteronomy — The Song of JIoscs — 
The liaising of Mn*e* — His view of the Promised Land — His death 
and burial — Character of Moses 158 



CONTENTS. xv 

BOOK IV. 

JOSHUA TO SAUL ; OR TRANSITION FROM THE THEOCRACY TO THE 

monarchy, a. m. 2553—2948. b. c. 1451—1095. 
CHAPTER XII. 

THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND. 

Names of the land — Its size — Its position on the map of the world — Its moun- 
tainous character — Divided by Mount Carmel — Plain of Esdraelon — Exact 
limits of the Holy Land — Galilee, Samaria, Judaea — The water-shed of the 
country, and the valleys on each side — Aspect of the south country (Judaea) 
— Aspect of Judaea in ancient times — Aspect of the central country (Sama- 
ria — Aspect of the northern country (Galilee) — Habitations of the Israel- 
ites on the hills — The maritime plains — The Philistine Plain and the Plain 
of Sharon — The Philistine Plain continued independent of the Israelites — 
The port of the Israelites — Joppa — The Jordan — Appearance of the coun- 
try to the Israelites 180 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CONQUEST AND DIVISION OF THE HOLY LAND. B. C. 1451 — 1426. 

Joshua the leader of Israel — Two spies sent to Jericho and saved by Rahab — 
Passage of the Jordan — Circumcision and Passover at Gilgal — Cessation of 
the Manna — State of the country — Jehovah appears to Joshua — Jericho 
taken and devoted to Jehovah — The curse on the city and the blessing on 
Rahab — Sin of Achan and capture of Ai — Results of the first campaign — 
The blessing and the curse at Shechem — Treaty with the Gibeonites — Con- 
federacy of five kings against Gibeon — Battle of Beth-horon — Conquest of 
the South — Confederacy of the North under Jabin — Conquest of the whole 
land — Considerable exceptions — Division of the land — Possessions of the 
tribes — Lot of Joshua — Cities of refuge and of the Levites — Altar of the 
two-and-a-half tribes — The schism healed — Last exhortations of Joshua — 
The Covenant renewed at Shechem — Deaths of Joshua and Eleazar — Bu- 
rial of Joseph's bones — Bright period of national fidelity 193 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE EARLIER JUDGES TO DEBORAH AND BARAK. B. C. 1426 — 1256. 

Difficulties in the history of the judges — The Books of Judges and Ruth — 
General character of this period — Efforts to drive out the heathen nations — 
Scenes of idolatry and wickedness: (i.) The story of Micah and the Dan- 
ites ; (ii.) Extermination of the Benjamites — Story of Ruth and Boaz — The 
Fifteen Judges — Servitude to Cushan-Rishathaim — Othniel, the first judge 
— Oppression by Eglon, king of Moab — Ehud, the second judge — Shamgar, 
the third judge — Tyranny of Jabin andSisera — Deborah and Barak jointly 
as fourth judge — The Song of Deborah 218 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE JUDGES, FROM GIDEON TO JEPnTnAn. B. C. 1256 — 1112. 

Oppression of the Midianitcs — Call of Gideon, the fifth judge — The Angel 
Jehovah — Gideon overthrows the Altar of Baal — Surnamed Jerubbaal — 
Gideon musters Israel — The signs of the fleece — Choice of 300 men — The 



xvi CONTENTS. 

trumpets, lamps, and pitchers — Slaughter of Midian in Jezreel — Pursuit 
beyond the Jordan — Fate of Succoth and Penuel — Gideon refuses the 
crown — Makes an Ephod — Abimelech murders Gideon's sons and be- 
comes king at Shechem — The parable or fable of Jotham — Revolt against 
Abimelech — Destruction of Shechem — His death — Erroneously ranked as 
the sixth judge — Tola and Jair the seventh and eighth judges — Oppres- 
sion of the Philistines and Amorites — Rise of Jephthah, the ninth judge 
— Embassy to Amnion — Jephthah' s vow — The Ammonites subdued — The 
fate of Jephthah's daughter — Massacre of Ephraim — Shibboletli and Sibbo- 
leth — Death of Jephthah — Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon, the tenth, eleventh, 
and twelfth judges 232 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE JUDGES — ELI, SAMSON, AND SAMUEL. THE PHILISTINE OPPRESSION. B. C. 

1161—1095. 

Chronology of the period, and relation of EH, Samson, and Samuel to each 
other — State of Southern Palestine — Eli, high-priest and judge — Rise of 
Samson and Samuel — Birth of Samson, the Nazarite — His first exploits and 
establishment as judge — The gates of Gaza 1 — Delilah — Captivity and death 
of Samson — Parentage and birth of Samuel — His dedication to God — Wick- 
edness of Eli's sons Hophni and Phinehas — A prophet sent to Eli — The 
call of Samuel — His establishment as a prophet — The first two battles of 
Ebenezer — Death of Eli and his sons — Capture of the Ark — " Ichabod" — 
The Ark among the Philistines — Its return to Beth-shemesh and Kirjath- 
jearim — Third battle and victory of Ebenezer — End of the Philistine op- 
pression — Judgeship of Samuel and his sons 245 



BOOK y. 

THE SINGLE MONARCH Y. B. C. 1095 — 975. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE REIGN OF SAUL AND EARLY HISTORY OF DAVID. B. C. 1095 — 10")6. 

End of the Theocracy — The people desire a king — Saul — His character and 
family — His visit to Samuel, designation, anointing, and the signs of God's 
favor — His election as king by lot, acceptance by the people, and inaugura- 
tion in the kingdom by Samuel — His relief of Jabesh-gilead from Nahash the 
Ammonite — Second inauguration of the kingdom, and retirement of Samuel, 
at Gilgal— Saul's second year— The " War of Michmash." with the Philis- 
tines—The first case of Saul's disobedience, and the first sentence of rejec- 
tion — Jonathan surprises the camp of the Philistines — Their rout, and 
Saul's foolish vow— Jonathan saved by the people— Other enemies subdued 
—Saul's kingdom fully established— His family, guards, officers, and regal 
state— Second period of Saul's reign— His mission against Amalek, disobe- 
dience, and final rejection— Samuel's last parting with Saul, and mourning 
for him— Samuel sent to Bethlehem to anoint David, the son of Jesse, as 
the first true king of Israel— His lineage, character, and early life — Sources 
of information — The war of Ephes-dammim with the Philistines— David's 
visits to the camp— His character for courage and prudence— He soothes 
Saul's madness with his harp— Slays Goliath, and becomes Saul's armor- 



CONTENTS 



xvii 



bearer — Beginning of his friendship with Jonathan, and of Saul's jealousy 
— David marries Michal, and becomes captain of the body-guard — Saul's 
open plots against David's life — David's flight to Ramah, to Achish, to the 
Cave of Adullam, and to the wilderness — His visit to Nob, and Saul's 
slaughter of the priests — Saul's pursuit of David — Their two interviews — 
Death of Samuel — The story of Nabal, and David's doable marriage to 
Abigail and Ahinoam — His final flight to the Philistines, and settlement at 
Ziklag — Gathering of the Philistines at Jezreel — Saul and the witch of En- 
dor — David returns from the Philistine camp and avenges the sack of Zik- 
lag — Battle of Mount Gilboa — Death of Saul and his sons — David's lamen- 
tation for Saul and Jonathan 263 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE REIGN OF DAVID. B. C. 1056 — 1015. 

David, king of Juclah, at Hebron — Ish-bosheth proclaimed king of Israel by 
Abner — Civil war — Deaths of Asahel, Abner, and Ish-bosheth — David king 
of all Israel — His army at Hebron — He takes Jerusalem — Alliance with 
Hiram, king of Tyre — Forms a harem — Victories over the Philistines — Re- 
moval of the Ark from Kirjath-jearim — Death of Uzzah — Second removal 
from the house of Obed-edom to Zion — Psalms on this occasion— Divine 
service arranged — The building of God's house postponed by divine com- 
mand — Messianic Psalms — David's victories over the Philistines, Moabites, 
Syrians, and Edomites — Israel reaches its fullest limits — Character and 
constitution of the kingdom: (i.) The Royal Family; (ii.) Military Orga- 
nization; (iii.) Civil Administration; (iv.) The Religious Institutions — 
David's prophetic character — Psalmody — Levites — Double High-priesthood 
— Courses of the Priests — Order of Prophets — David's kindness to Mephibo- 
sheth — Touching story of Rizpah — War with the Ammonites and Syrians 
— Victories of Joab and David — Siege of Rabbah — David and Bathsheba — 
Murder of Uriah — Mission of Nathan — David's repentance — Death of Da- 
vid's child — Birth of Solomon — Final conquest of Amnion — Second Pe- 
riod of David's Reign — Family troubles — Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom 
— Rebellion of Absalom — He is crowned at Hebron — David's flight from Je- 
rusalem — The priests and Ark sent back — Ahithophel and Hushai — Ziba 
and Shimei — Absalom at Jerusalem — David at Mahanaim — Disappointment 
and death of Ahithophel — Absalom pursues David — Battle in the wood of 
Ephraim— Death and burial of Absalom — David's lamentation — His return 
to Jerusalem — The farewell of Barzillai — Discord of Judah and Israel — Re- 
bellion of Sheba — Joab kills Amasa — Death of Sheba — War with the Phi- 
listines — David's Psalm of Victory — Third Period of David's Reign — 
The numbering of the people, and the three days' pestilence — The place of 
the sanctuary determined — Preparations for its building, and designation 
of Solomon — Rebellion of Adonijah — Proclamation of Solomon — David's 
last congregation — His final charge to Solomon — Fate of Adonijah, Abia- 
thar, Joab, and Shimei — David's last words, death, and burial — His chaf- 9 
acter 29G 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. B. c. 1015 — 975. 
Character of Solomon's reign — His marriage with Pharaoh's daughter — Alli- 
ance with Hiram — The High Places retained — God appears to him at 



xviii CONTENTS. 

Gibeon — His choice of wisdom — The Judgment of Solomon — Solomon's 
court and revenues — His personal qualities — His knowledge, writings, and 
conversation — The Proverbs — Building of the Temple — Arrangements with 
King Hiram — Materials for the house — Hiram the architect — Description 
of the edifice — Dedication of the Temple — The prayer of Solomon — Com- 
pletion of Solomon's buildings — God's second appearance to him — His 
works in the provinces — Conquest of Hamath — Building of Tadmor — Solo- 
mon's commercial enterprises — Voyages to Tharshish and Ophir — His 
works in gold, ivory, etc. — Visits of foreign kings — The Queen of Sheba — 
Solomon's declension — His tyrannical government and idolatries — Trou- 
bles from Hadad, Rezon, and Jeroboam — Prophecy of Ahijah — Last days 
of Solomon — Book of Ecclesiastes — Death and burial of Solomon — Records 
of his reign 340 



BOOK YI. 

THE DIVIDED MONARCHY. THE CAPTIVITY AND THE RETURN. 

B. C. 975—400. 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE KINGDOMS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL. FROM THE DIVISION OF THE MONARCHY 
TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE HOUSE OF AHAB. B. C. 975 — 884. 

Kingdoms of Judah and Israel — Their respective characters — Superiority of 
Judah — Accession of Rehoboam — Assembly of Shechem — Revolt of the 
Ten Tribes under Jeroboam — Judah and Benjamin adhere to Rehoboam — 
War forbidden by the prophet Shemaiah — Government of Rehoboam — Re- 
ligious declension — Jerusalem taken by Shishak — Death of Rehoboam — 
Reign of Abijah, second king of Judah — Defeat of Jeroboam — Prosperity 
of Judah — Jeroboam I., king of Israel — Extent of the kingdom — Idolatry 
of the golden calves — The prophet at Bethel — Abijah, son of Jeroboam — 
The prophet Ahijah — Nadab, second king of Israel — His murder, and ex- 
tinction of the house of Jeroboam — Baasha, third king of Israel — The 
prophet Jehu — "War with Judah and Syria — Elah, fourth king of Israel — 
Murdered by Zimri — Extinction of the house of Baasha — Zimri, fifth king 
of Israel, reigns only seven days — Deaths of Zimri and Tibni, his competi- 
tor — Omri, sixth king of Israel — Building of the new capital Samaria — De- 
pendence of Israel on Syria — Wickedness and death of Omri — Asa, third 
king of Judah — Reformation of religion — Asa's great army — Defeat of 
Zerah the Ethiopian — The prophet AzARiAn — Second reformation — War 
with Baasha, and alliance with Benhadad I. — The prophet Hanani re- 
proves Asa — Religious persecution — Death of Asa — Jehoshaphat, seventh 
king of Judah — His piety and prosperity — Alliance with Ahab — Ahab, 
seventh king of Israel, and his wife Jezebel — Worship of Baal, and perse- 

• cution of Jehovah's worshippers — Elijah the Tisiibite denounces a three 
years' drought — Elijah nourished at Cherith by ravens, at Zarephath by a 
starving widow — His appearance to Ahab, and contest with the prophets 
of Baal at Mount Carmel — Victory of Elijah — The people confess Jehovah 
— The prophets of Baal slain — Elijah's prayer for rain — Fury of Jezebel — 
Flight of Elijah to the Wilderness — His vision of Jehovah's glory — 
His mission to anoint Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha — The murder of Naboth, 



CONTENTS. xix 

and the judgment pronounced by Elijah — Wars of Ahab with Syria — 
Benhadad II. defeated at Samaria and Aphek — Expedition of Ahab and 
Jehoshaphat to recover Ramoth, in Gilead — The prophet Micaiah — Defeat 
of the two kings, and death of Ahab — Jehoshaphat reproved by Jehu — His 
great reformation of Justice — War with Moab and Amnion — The prophet 
Jahaziel — Great victory of Berachah — Alliances with Ahaziah and Jeho- 
ram — Maritime enterprise of Jehoshaphat, denounced by the prophet Eli- 
ezer — Death of Jehoshaphat — Ahaziah, eighth king of Israel — Last 
appearance of Elijah — His Translation — Ministry of Elisha — Jehoram, 
ninth king of Israel — Allies with Jehoshaphat against the revolt of the 
Moabites — Miracle of Elisha, and defeat of Moab — Siege of Kir-haraseth 
and human sacrifice by the King of Moab — Elisha and the widow — The 
Shunammite woman — The healing of Naaman's leprosy — War with Syria 
— Elisha and the Syrians — The siege of Samaria miraculously raised — Je- 
horam, fifth king of Judah — Marriage with Athaliah, daughter of Ahab — 
Idolatry and wickedness— Revolts of Edom, Libnah, the Philistines, and 
Arabians — Ahaziah, sixth king of Judah — Elisha anoints Hazael, who 
murders Benhadad II. — Anointing and revolt of Jehu — Slaughter of Jeho- 
ram, Jezebel, Ahab's seventy sons, the princess of Judah, the worshippers 
of Baal, and Ahaziah — Usurpation of Athaliah, and murder of the royal 
family of Judah, except Joash, who is saved by Jehoiada — Restoration of 
Joash, and death of Athaliah — Extinction of the house of Ahab in both its 
branches of Israel and Judah 361 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE KINGDOMS OP JUDAH AND ISRAEL — CONTINUED, FROM THE DESTRUCTION OP 
THE HOUSE OF AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY OP THE TEN TRIBES. B. C. 884-721. 

State of the two kingdoms — Israel: Fourth Dynasty; Tenth king, Jehu — 
Mentioned on an Assyrian monument — Eleventh king, Jehoahaz — Judah : 
Eighth king, Joash — The high-priest Jehoiada — Restoration of the Temple 
— Apostasy — The Prophets — Martyrdom of Zechariah — Syrian invasion 
of Judah — Israel : Twelfth king, Jehoash — Death of Elisha — Judah : 
Ninth king, Amaziah — Victory over Edom — Jerusalem taken by Jehoash — 
Israel : Thirteenth king, Jeroboam II — Political revival of the kingdom 

t — The prophet Jonah — Fourteenth king, Zachariah — Supposed Interreg- 
num— The prophet Hosea — End of Jehu's dynasty — Fifteenth king, Shal- 
lum — Civil war — Fifth Dynasty — Sixteenth and Seventeenth kings, Mena- 
hem and Pekahiah — First invasion of Israel by Assyria under Pul — Sixth 
Dynasty— Eighteenth king, Pekah — State of Israel as described by the 
prophets Amos and Hosea— Judah : Tenth king, TJzziah— His good reign 
and successful wars — Profanes the Temple and dies a leper — Eleventh 
king, Jotham— His piety and prosperity— Twelfth king, Ahaz— War with 
Syria and Israel — Elath taken by Syria — Jewish captives restored 
by Israel— Ahaz calls in Tiglath-pileser— Destruction of the kingdom 
of Damascus— Captivity of the Trans-jordanic and northern tribes— 
Ahaz goes to Damascus— His shameless idolatries— Thirteenth king, Ileze- 
kiah— Reform of religion— His great Passover— He destroys the Brazen 
Serpent— Defeats the Philistines— Revolts from Assyria— Israel : Nine- 
teenth and last king, Ilonhea ; the best of the kings of Israel— Symptoms 
of a revival— Revolts from Shalmaneser— First Assyrian invasion— I Ios- 
hea's secret league with Egypt, and imprisonment— Siege and capture of 



xx CONTEXTS. 

Samaria — End of the Kingdom: of Israel and Captivity of the Tex 
Tribes — Geographical extent of the Captivity — Subsequent history of the 

- colonization of Samaria 400 

CHAPTER XXII. 

M THE END OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL TO END OF THE KINGDOM OF 

JTDAH. B. C. 721-58 

stress : Assyria — Siege of Tyre by Sargon — His invasion of Egypt — I 
58 and recovery of Hezekiah — Embassy from Babylon — First Prophecy 

the Babylonish Captivity — Sennacherib succeeds Sargon — Egyptian 
party in Judah denounced by Isaiah — Invasion of Sennacherib and sub- 
mission of Hezekiah — War of Sennacherib with Egypt — Rabshakeh sum- 
mons Jerusalem — Destruction of the Assyrian army — Death of Sennache- 
— Prosperity and death of Hezekiah — Manasseh. fourteenth king of 
Judah — Anti -religious reaction — Imprisonment of Manasseh by Esar-had- 
don at Babylon — His repentance and restoration — His probable relations 

i Egypt — His death — Amon. fifteenth king of Judah — Josiah. sixteenth 
king of Judah — Religious degradation of the people — Josiah begins to 

.: the Lord — Restoration of the Temple and Ark — Book of the Law dis- 
covered — The prophetess Huldah — Destruction of the idols — Gehenna — 
Isaiah's great Passover — Fall of Assyria, and rise of Media and Babylon — 
y of Babylon and Egypt — Expedition of Necho — Death of Josiah at 
Megiddo — The mystic battle of Armageddon — Revival of prophecy under 
3 «iah : Xahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah — The successors 
of Josiah but nominal kings — Jehoahaz, the seventeenth king of Judah, 

up by the people, and deposed by Necho — ,; Cadytis " taken by Necho 
— Jehoiakim. the eighteenth king of Judah — Defeat of Necho by Nebu- 
chadnezzar — Jeremiah prophesies the seventy years' Captivity at Hal 

— Story of the Rechabites — Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem — The 
/ of Juaa%— Daniel and his comrades — P#blic reading of 
Jeremiah's prophecies by Baruch — Rebellion and death of Jehoiakim — 
Jehoiachin, the nineteenth king of Judah — Set up and deposed by Nebu- 
chadnezzar — The Second and great Captivity of Judah — Subsequent history 

Jehoiachin and the line of David — Zedektah, the twentieth and I 
king over the remnant of Judah — Parties at Jerusalem — Jeremiah advises * 
submission — The seditious false prophets — Predictions of the restoration 
of Israel and the fall of Babylon — Ezektel prophesies at Babylon — Zcde- 
ih conspires with Egypt — Jerusalem besieged by Nebuchadnezzar — Ad- 
vance and retreat of Pharaoh-hophra — Imprisonment of Jeremiah — Capture 
and destruction of Jerusalem — Exultation of the neighboring nations — 
Prophecy of Obadiah — Third Captivity — Summary of the Captivities — The 
land left uncolonized — The remnant in Juda?a — Gedaliah. Ishmael, aud 
Johanan — Flight into Egypt under Johanan — Nebuchadnezzar invades 
Egypt — His other conquests 424 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF JTDAH TO TnE CLOSE OF THE 
CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON. B. C 586-536. 

The captives at Babylon — Daniel and his compan: — Xbuchadnezzar's 
dream — The Imperial statue — The fiery furnace — Nebuchadnezzar's hu- 



CONTENTS. xxi 

miliation — His death — The successors of Nebuchadnezzar — Rise of Cyrus 
the Great, and foundation of the Persian Empire — Coalition of Lydia, 
Egypt, and Babylon against Cyrus — Defeat of Croesus — Cyrus attacks 
Babylon — Siege of Babylon — Belshazzar's feast — The city surprised and 
taken — End of the Babylonian Empire — Reign of "Darius the Median," 
probably Astyages — Daniel under Darius — The den of lions — Prophecies 
of Daniel: (i.) Dream of the Image; (ii.) Dream of Nebuchadnezzar' 1 s 
madness ; (iii.) Dream of the Four Beasts ; (iv.) Vision of the Bam and 
He-goat ; (v.) Prophecy of the Seve?ity Weeks; (vi.) Vision of the Son of 
God, and Prophecy of the Last Days — Subsequent history and final deso- 
lation of Babylon 457 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE RESTORED JEWISII NATION AND CHURCH — FROM THE DECREE OF CYRUS TO 
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. B. C 536-400 ? 

The decree of Cyrus — Moral gains of the Captivity — Cessation of idolatry — 
More spiritual worship — Germs of new declension — Numbers of the first 
caravan — The new nation composed of all the tribes — Arrival at Jerusa- 
lem, and foundation of the Temple — Opposition to the building — Series of . 
Persian kings — The work interrupted under the Pseudo-Smerdis, and re- 
sumed under Darius Hystaspis — The prophets Haggai and Zechariah — 
Dedication of the second Temple — Accession of Xerxes, the Ahasuerus of 
the Book of Esther — The feast of Purim — Esther not Amestris — Artax- 
erxes Longimanus — Commission of Ezra — The second caravan of re- 
turned exiles — Reformation by Ezra — Commission of Nehemiah — Building 
of the walls — Opposition of Sanballat and Tobiah — Nehemiah's Reforma- 
tion — Completion of the wall — Reading of the Law by Ezra — Feast of 
Tabernacles — Day of Atonement — Covenant of the people— Peopling of 
Jerusalem — Dedication of the wall — Nehemiah returns to Persia — His 
second commission to Jerusalem — Misconduct of the high-priest and 
princes — Nehemiah's Second Reformation — Book of Nehemiah — Prophecy 
of Malachi — Last days of Ezra, and works ascribed to him — The great 
Synagogue — The Old Testament Canon — The cxixth Psalm — Schism of 
the Samaritans, and their temple on Mount Gerizim 47:3 



f .a.:r,t ii. 

THE APOCRYPHAL HISTORY. FROM THE RETURN OF THE JEWS 
FROM BABYLON TO THE DEATH OF HEROD THE GREAT. 



BOOK VII. 

CONNECTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT HISTORIES, AM) 
SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS TO THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN 
OF HEROD. B. C. 400-4. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

FROM NEIIEMIAII TO THE PERSECUTION OP ANTI0CTIUS EPIPIIAM.S. B. C. 

400—108. 
Interval of four centuries- between the Old and Now Testaments— Four 
periods: Persian, Greek, Asmomean, and Herodian — Judffia under the Per- 



xxii CONTEXTS. 

sians — The high-priests Eliashib, Joiada, Jonathan or Johanan — Mur- 
der of Joshua — Jaddua — Close of the Old Testament Canon — Alexander 
the Great — Rebellion of the Samaritans — Onias I. — Division of Alexan- 
der's Empire — Jerusalem taken by Ptolemy I. — Judaea subject to Egypt — 
Simon I. the Just — The ideal of a high-priest — The New Synagogue — 
Antigonus Socho — Eleazak, under Ptolemy II. Philadelphus— Version 
of the LXX— Manasseh— Onias II.— Offends Ptolemy III. Euergetes— 
Joseph, son of Tobias — Simon II. — Wars of Syria and Egypt — Ptolemy 
IV. Philopator profanes the Temple— Antiochus III. the Great — Judaea 
becomes subject to Syria — Onias III., under Seleucus IV. Philopator — 
Legend of Heliodorus — Simon, treasurer of the Temple — Accession of 
Antiochus IV. Epiphanes — Jason and Menelaus — Introduction of Hel- 
lenic customs — Death of Onias III. — Antiochus in Egypt — Tumult at 
Jerusalem — Expulsion and death of Jason — Antiochus storms Jerusalem 
and profanes the Temple — Fate of Menelaus#-Sack of Jerusalem by Apol- 
lonius — Great persecution, conducted by Athanaeus — Martyrdom of Elea- 
zar and of the Seven Brethren — Death of Antiochus Epiphanes — Silence 
of the heathen historians on this period of Jewish history — Allusion to it 
by Tacitus — State of the Jewish nation, religious, political, and social — 
The antagonism of princes and priests — Of Hellenism and patriotism 493 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE MACCAB.EAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. B. C. 168-106. 

The family of Mattathias — His retirement from Jerusalem to Modin — He 
refuses to sacrifice, kills the royal officer, and flees to the mountains — Pro- 
gress of the revolt, and death of Mattathias — Judas the Maccabee suc- 
ceeds his father, and defeats Apollonius and Seron — Measures of Antiochus 
Epiphanes — Great victories of Judas over ZSTieanor and Gorgias, Timotheus 
and Bacchides — Defeat of Lysias at Bethsura — Judas takes Jerusalem and 
purifies the Temple — "Feast of the Dedication" — Wars with the neigh- 
boring nations — Antiochus V. Eupator and Lysias invade Judaea — Capture 
of Bethsura — Eleazar Avaran crushed under an elephant — Treachery of 
Antiochus at Jerusalem — Accession of Demetrius I. Soter — Flight of Onias 
IV. to Egypt, and building of the Jewish temple at Leontopolis — Alcimus 
high-priest at Jerusalem — Armies sent to establish him — Decisive defeat 
of Nicanor at Adasa, the Jewish Marathon — Alliance of the Jews with 
Bome — Their defeat at Eleasa, the Maccabaean Thermopylae — Death of 
Judas — Jonathan Apphus, the Maccabee, succeeds Judas — Death of Alci- 
mus and peace with Bacchides — War between Alexander Balas and De- 
metrius — Jonathan made high-priest — He defeats Apollonius — Fall of 
Alexander Balas — Demetrius II. Nicator assisted by Jonathan against 
Tryphon — Antiochus VI. Theos favors the Jews — Jonathan taken prisoner 
Tryphon — His death — Simon Thassi, the Maccabee. accomplishes the 
independence of Judaea — Usurpation of Tryphon in Syria — Murder of 
Antiochus Theos, and captivity of Demetrius Nicator in Parthia — Pros- 
perity of Jjidsea — Treaties with Pome and Lacedasmon — Defeat of Tryphon 
by Antiochus VII. Sidetes — Last Syrian war against Judaea — Victory of 
Judas and John, the sons of Simon, over Cendebeus— Treacherous murder 
of Simon, with his sons Judas and Mattathias, at Jericho, by Ptolemy, son 
of Abubus — John Hykc ax us. son of Simon, besieges Jericho — Cruelties 



CONTENTS. xxiii 

and escape of Ptolemy — Antiochus Sidetes takes Jerusalem and gains the 
surname of Eusebes — His death in Parthia — Complete independence of 
Judaea — John Hyrcanus conquers Idumaea and Samaria, and destroys the 
temple on Mount Gerizim — Quarrels with the Pharisees and favors the 
Sadducees — His death — Review of the Maccabaean contest in the light of 
patriotism and religion — Belief in the Resurrection and steadfastness to 
the Law — Literature and art — Maccabaean coins 511 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE ASMON^EAN KINGDOMS. B. C. 106-37. 

Change for the worse in Jewish history — Aristobulus I. assumes the royal 
title — Conquest of Ituraea — Deaths of Antigonus and Aristobulus — Alex- 
ander Jann^us — Judaea invaded by Ptolemy Lathyrus, and rescued by 
Cleopatra — Conquests and defeats of Alexander — His civil war, and dying 
reconciliation with the Pharisees — Honors to his memory — Alexandra, 
with Hyrcanus II. as high-priest — Ascendancy of the Pharisees, under- 
mined by a secret opposition — Hyrcanus II. is deposed by his brother 
Aristobulus — Defeat of the party of the Pharisees— Aristobulus II. — 
Rise of Antipater — Hyrcanus flies to Aretas, King of Arabia, who be- 
sieges Jerusalem — The paschal lambs — The prayer of Onias — Intervention 
of Rome — The Mithridatic War — Tigranes expelled from Syria by Lucullus 
— Antiochus XIII. deposed, and Syria made a Roman province — Pompey 
as arbiter between the Jewish princes — Resistance of Aristobulus — Pompey 
takes Jerusalem, profanes the Temple, and carries off Aristobulus to Rome 
— Hyrcanus II. restored to the high-priesthood — Revolt of Alexander put 
down by Gabinius — New Constitution — The five Great Sanhedrims — Es- 
cape and defeat of Aristobulus and Antigonus — New revolt and defeat of 
Alexander — Crassus plunders the Temple — The Great Civil War of Rome 
— Deaths of Aristobulus and Alexander — Hyrcanus ethnarch and Antipater 
procurator of Judaea — Family of Antipater — Herod governor of Galilee — 
His early boldness — Death of Caesar — Judaea oppressed by Cassius — Mur- 
der of Antipater and revenge of Herod — Unsuccessful risings of the stricter 
Jews — Herod marries Mariamne, the granddaughter of Hyrcanus, and de- 
feats Antigonus — Mark Antony makes Herod and Phasael tetrarchs of 
Palestine — The Parthian Invasion— Flight of Herod — Death of Phasael 
and mutilation of Hyrcanus — Nominal reign of Antigonus — Herod named 
by the triumvirs King of Judaea — His war with Antigonus — Capture of 
Jerusalem — Execution of Antigonus — End of the Asmon^ean Dynasty.. 535 

CHAPTER XXVHI. 

herod the great, b. c 37-4. 

Government and policy of the Herodian family — Herod the Great — Mas- 
sacre of the Sanhedrim — The high-priesthood — Aristobulus appointed and 
murdered— Herod and Cleopatra — The Battle of Actium — Herod and Oc- 
tavian — Extent and divisions of Herod's kingdom — Domestic tragedies — 
Deaths of Mariamne and Alexandra — Government of Herod — His hellen- 
izing practices— -Building of the Antonia, of Sebaste, and of Caesarea— 
Herod courts Augustus and Agrippa — His munificence — Rebuilding of the 
Temple — Family of llerod— Judicial murder of Aristobulus and Alexan Ler 



xxiv CONTENTS. 

— Conspiracy and condemnation of Antipater — Herod's last illness — 
Alarm at the birth of Christ — The massacre at Bethlehem — Execution of 
Antipater — Death of Herod — Character of Herod — His place in Sacred 
History 552 



:p.a.:r,t hi. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. FROM THE BIRTH OF JOHN 
THE BAPTIST TO THE DEATH OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST. 



BOOK VIII. 

THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST J OR, THE 
REVELATION OF THE GOSPEL. B. C. 5-A. D. 30. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF JOHN AND JESUS. B. C. 5-A. D. 26. 

Beginning of the Gospel history according to the four Evangelists — St. 
John's doctrine of the "Word — St. Luke's beginning of the history — Zacha- 
rias and Elisabeth — Mary and Joseph — The births of John and Jesus an- 
nounced by the angel Gabriel — Salutation of Mary by Elisabeth — Birth 
and youth of John the Baptist — Prophecy of Zacharias — The angel appears 
to Joseph — The miraculous conception — Joseph and Mary go to Beth- 
lehem — Birth of Jesus Christ — Adoration of the shepherds — The circum- 
cision and presentation in the Temple — Simeon and Anna — Adoration of 
the Magi — Massacre at Bethlehem — Flight to Egypt — Death of Herod and 
accession of Archelaus — Return of the Holy Family to Nazareth — Jesus 
in the Temple at the Passover at the age of twelve — His abode at Nazareth 
till his thirtieth year — His life during this period 569 

CHAPTER XXX. 

our saviour's early ministry, from the preaching of john the baptist 
to Christ's first passover. a. d. 26-27. 

State of Judaea at the appearance of John the Baptist — His preaching of 
repentance, and his baptism — His addresses to different classes — The 
Pharisees reject, the common people and Publicans believe him — The 
baptism of Jesus ; its significance — The descent of the Holy Ghost — Jesus 
proclaimed the Son of God — The temptation of Jesus: its meaning, scene, 
and incidents : parallel to Moses and Elijah in the desert — The ministry of 
angels — John disclaims the Messiahship for himself, and proclaims Jesus 
as the Lamb of God — Two of John's disciples follow Christ — Andrew, and 
probably John — Andrew brings his brother Simon — Beginning of the 
Christian Church — Call of Philip and Nathanael, or Bartholomew — Their 
successive confessions of the Christ — Goes with his disciples into Galilee — 
The Marriage Feast at Cana — Jesus and Mary — Our Lord's first miracle — 
Essential character of miracles — Already familiar to the Jews — Tests laid 
dowa by the Rabbis: satisfied in the miracle at Cana — Its effect on the 



CONTENTS. xxv 

disciples — Social aspect of the miracle — Sanction of the ordinance of mar- 
riage, though himself unmarried — Christ's short abode at Capernaum — 
Conclusion of the more private opening of his ministry — Approach of the 
Passover 587 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

first year of christ* s ministry. from his first passover to his second 
visit to Jerusalem, probably at the passover. a. d. 27-28. 

Beginning of Christ's Ministry at Jerusalem at the Passover — The First 
Passover — Christ purifies the Temple — Contrast with his last appearance 
there — The Jews demand a sign — His prediction concerning the Temple of 
his Body — His converts at this Passover ; and his reserve in trusting them 
— Christ and Nicodemus — Jesus leaves Jerusalem for the country of Ju- 
daea, and gains converts, who are baptized by his disciples — John's final 
testimony to Christ — John rebukes Herod Antipas for Herodias's sake, and 
is cast into prison — Christ retires to Galilee — The Samaritan woman and 
her fellow-townsmen of Sychar — Jesus in Galilee — The prophet without 
honor in his own country — Difficulty as to the Gospel harmony at this 
point — Second visit of Jesus to Cana — His second Galilean miracle : heal- 
ing of the courtier's son — Beginning of the Gospel from Galilee: its signi- 
ficance — Narrative of the first three Evangelists derived from Galilean 
sources — Their external means of information and their inspiration — 
Christ began by proclaiming the kingdom of heaven as at hand — Distinc- 
tion between this and John the Baptist's preaching — He teaches in the 
synagogues — Proclaims himself at Nazareth as the Messiah — Rejected by 
his fellow-townsmen — Jesus at Capernaum — Ministry by the Lake of Gali- 
lee — Final call of Peter, Andrew, James, and John — A Sabbath in the 
synagogue at Capernaum — The demoniac healed — The devil confesses 
Christ, but is silenced by him — Healing of Peter's wife's mother — Miracles 
in the evening — Departure from Capernaum — Christ's First Galilean Cir- 
cuit — Healing the leper — Jesus returns to Capernaum — Healing of the 
paralytic in the presence of the Pharisees and doctors — Christ claims the 
divine prerogative of forgiving sin — The call of Matthew — Various ex- 
amples of Christ's miracles — The " Feast of the Jews " of John v. — Christ 
goes up to Jerusalem — Healing of the cripple at Bethesda — Charged by 
the Jew 7 s with Sabbath-breaking — His answ r er COO 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

the sequel of Christ's ministry in galilee, from after his second pass 
over, in a. d. 28, to near the feast of tabernacles, a. d. 29. 

Pteturn of Jesus from Jerusalem to Galilee — The plucking of the ears of corn 
on the Sabbath— The healing of the withered hand— Christ rebuts the 
charge of Sabbath-breaking— Plot of the Pharisees and the Herodians 
against him — He retires to the shore of the Galilean lake, and is followed 
by multitudes — His miracles prove him the servant of God predicted by 
Isaiah — Preparations for organizing the Christian Church— Choice of the 
Twelve Apostles—The Sermon on the Mount — Certain preliminary ques- 
tions discussed— Unity of the discourse, and its identity in Matthew and 



xxvi CONTEXTS. 

Luke — The Time and Scene — Mount of the Beatitudes — Choice of the 
Apostles — Characters of their office — Personal qualifications — The Lists of 
the Twelve Apostles — The Sermon on the Mount ; the Law of the Xew 
Dispensation — Effect of the discourse — Jesus returns to Capernaum — 
Healing of the Centurion's servant — Raising of the widow's son to life — 
Last mention of John the Baptist — His message to Jesus — Christ's final 
testimony to John — Denunciation of the Galilean cities — Thanksgiving for 
that the Gospel is revealed to babes — Jesus, at a Pharisee's table, is 
anointed by a sinful woman — He forgives her sins, and rebukes the scorn- 
ful Pharisees — The woman not Mary Magdalene — Distinction between this 
anointiug of Jesus as the Christ, and his anointing for his burial by Mary 
of Bethany — Second Circuit through Galilee — The women who ministered 
to Jesus — His Miracles, Discourses, and Parables — He stills the Storm on 
the Lake of Galilee — The Gadarene demoniac — Third Circuit through 
Galilee — The Apostles sent forth — Their commission and success — Herod 
desires to see Jesus — Jesus followed to the sea shore by the multitude — 
First miracle of the loaves and fishes — Voyage of the disciples across the 
Lake — Jesus walks upon the water, and saves Peter — Many desert Jesus — 
Peter's confession — Jesus watched by emissaries from Jerusalem — lie re- 
tires to Phoenicia and Decapoiis — The Syrophcenician woman — Healing of 
the deaf and dumb — Second miracle of the loaves and fishes — Dispute with 
the Pharisees — Jesus ascends the upper Jordan to Caesarea Philippi — 
Peter's full confession of Christ — The rock on which the Church is built — 
Christ predicts his Passion and rebukes the remonstrance of Peter — The 
Transfiguration — The demoniac child — Prayer and fasting — Renewed pre- 
diction of Christ's passion — His last return to Capernaum — The contest for 
precedence — Example of the little child — Christ's final departure from 
Galilee G2G 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE LAST SIX MONTHS OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. FROM THE FEAST OF TABER- 
NACLES, A. D. 29, TO HIS FOURTH PASSOVER, A. D. 30. 

Approach of the Feast of Tabernacles — Jesus challenged by his brethren to 
show himself — His journey through Samaria, and rejection there — Com- 
mission of the Seventy Disciples — Expectation concerning Jesus — He ap- 
pears in the Temple — Last day of the Feast — Christ the Living Water — 
The attempt to arrest him fails — Xicodemus in the Council — The woman 
taken in adultery — Controversy with the Pharisees — The witness to 
Christ — Attempt to stone him — The man born blind restored to sight — 
Christ the Light of the "World — Character of the miracle — The man before 
the Council — His excommunication — The Pharisees blind in sin — Jesus 
Christ the Good Shepherd — Jesus at the Feast of the Dedication — The 
Jews attempt to stone him, and he retires to Bethabara — The interval here 
filled up by St. Luke — The Family at Bethany — The raising of Lazarus — 
A council held concerning Jesus — The prophecy of Caiaphas — Christ's 
death resolved on — He retires to Ephrsim — His return toward Jerusalem — 
Denunciation of Herod — Lamentation for Jerusalem — Events and dis- 
courses in the progress through Pera^a — He recrosses the Jordan to Jericho 
— Heals the two blind men — Conversion of Zaeeheus — Christ arrives finally 
at Bethany six days before the Passover ; and spends the Sabbath there.... G52 



CONTENTS. xxvii 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. FROM PALM SUNDAY TO EASTER EVE, APRIL 1ST 

TO APRIL 7TH. A. D. 30. 

The first day of the Paschal Week — The Paschal Lamb selected — Christ ful- 
fils the prophecy of Zechariah by entering Jerusalem — His reception by 
the people — Eeturns to Bethany — Cleanses the Temple — The barren fig- 
tree — The last great day of our Lord's teaching in the Temple — Devices to 
entrap him — The tribute money — The Sadducees and the Resurrection — 
The Pharisees and Scribes — The great Commandment — Jesus questions 
them — Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees — Christ weeps over 
Jerusalem — Praise of the poor widow — Christ's final departure from the 
Temple — His prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the end of 
the world — Plot of the Jews to seize him — Treason of Judas Iscariot — 
Preparation for the Passover — The Last Supper — Jesus washes the dis- 
ciples' feet — Christ's agony in the garden — Arrival of Judas and arrest of 
Jesus — Flight of all the disciples but Peter and John — Christ before the 
high-priest — Peter denies his Master — Christ before the Sanhedrim — He is 
taken before Pilate — His kingdom is not of this world — Pilate sends him 
to Herod — Herod mocks him — Pilate condemns Jesus to be crucified — Re- 
morse and suicide of Judas — The Crucifixion — Scene at the cross — The 
penitent Thief — The death of Christ — His body given to his disciples — His 
burial — The guard at the tomb G64 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF CHRIST. FROM EASTER DAY TO ASCEN- 
SION DAY, APRIL 8TH TO MAY 17TH. A. D. 30. 

First Day of the next week: the 17th of Nisan, Sunday, April 8th, Easter 
Day — Difficulties in the Harmony : (i.) The Resurrection of Christ — 
Its time — The "three days " in the tomb ; — (ii.) Visit of the women to the 
Sepulchre, which they find empty; — (iii.) Mary Magdalene carries the 
news to Peter and John ; — (iv.) Vision of an angel to the women ; — (v. 
First Appearance of Jesus, to the women on their return; — (vi.) Peter 
and John go to the Sepulchre — Order of the grave clothes ; — (vii.) Second 
Appearance of Jesus, to Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre ; — (viii.) Third 
Appearance of Jesus, to Peter; — (ix.) His Fourth Appearance, on the 
journey to Emmaus ; — (x.) His Fifth Appearance, to the assembled Apos- 
tles, except Thomas — Their commission and inspiration — Sunday, the 
24th of Nisan, April 15th; — (xi.) ChrisVs Sixth Appearance, to all the 
Apostles — Confession of Thomas — The disciples depart into Galilee; — 
(xii.) ChrisVs Seventh Appearance, to the Apostles at the Lake of Galilee 
— Peter's avowal of his love : his new commission given, and his death 
foretold ; — (xiii.) GhrisVs Eighth Appearance, to the great body of his dis- 
ciples on the Galilean Mount — His great commission, and promise of the 
Holy Spirit ; — (xiv.) ChrisVs Ninth Appearance, to James ; — (xv.) Holy 
Thursday, the 3d of Sivan, May 17th — His Tenth and Last Appearance, 
to the Apostles at Jerusalem — Promise of the Holy Spirit — He leads them 
out to Bethany, and ascends to heaven — The angels promise his second 
coming — The Apostles return to Jerusalem — St. John's conclusion of the 
Gospel narrative G97 



xxviii CONTENTS. 

BOOK IX. 

HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES J OH, THE FOUNDING OF THE CHRISTIAN 

CHURCH. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE TO THE DISPERSION OF THE CHRISTIANS FROM 

JERUSALEM. A. D. 30-37. 

The Acts of the Apostles not a complete apostolic history — Its real purpose — 
Break between it and the earliest ecclesiastical history — The Primitive 
Church in its two sections, Galilean and Judsean — The 120 brethren at 
Jerusalem — Choice of Matthias to be an Apostle in place of Judas — The 
Day of Pentecost, or Whitsunday, 6th of Sivan, May 27th, a, d. 30 — De- 
scent of the Holy Ghost — Gift of the Spirit — The disciples speak with 
Tongues — Effects on the people — St. Peter's sermon — The 3000 converts — 
Practical reformation — State of the Primitive Church — Healing of the 
lame man at the Temple — St. Peter's second discourse — Peter and John 
before the Sanhedrim — Their dismissal — Thanksgivings of the Church 
and new effusion of the Holy Ghost — Community of goods — The sin and 
judgment of Ananias and Sapphira — Its effect Bpon the people — Imprison- 
ment and deliverance of the Apostles — Their boldness before the Sanhe- 
drim — The counsel of Gamaliel — Beginning of positive institutions in the 
Church — DissensionbetweentheHellenistsand the Hebrews — Appointment 
of the Seven Deacons — Their zeal for the Gospel — Success of Stephen in 
controversy with the Hellenistic Jews — His defence before the Sanhedrim — 
His martyrdom, and Saul's share in it — General persecution, and dispersion 
of the disciples from Jerusalem — Diffusion of the Gospel — Three steps : 
Samaria, Ethiopian eunuch, Cornelius — Philip at Samaria — Simon Magus 
and Peter — The Ethiopian eunuch converted and baptized by Philip — 
Philip fixes his abode at Caesarea — Position of the Christian Church at the 
death of Tiberius ; 706 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

TnE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. A. D. 37-40. 

Outline of St. Paul's life — His first appearance as a persecutor — Review of 
his life — Saul's birthplace and parentage — His Roman citizenship — His 
trade of tent-making — His education in Greek learning at Tarsus, and in 
Rabbinical lore at Jerusalem — His rigid Pharisaism and zeal for the Law — 
His persecuting spirit — His part in the martyrdom of Stephen and the en- 
suing persecution — His miraculous conversion — The visit of Ananias — 
Paul restored to sight and baptized — His conversion an evidence of the 
truth of Christianity — His designation to the Apostleship — His ministry at 
Damascus and retreat to Arabia — His escape from Damascus to Jerusalem 
— His reception by the Apostles and the Church — His relations to Peter — 
His vision in the Temple, and full commission to the Gentiles — The 
Churches of Judoea rest and prosper 725 



CONTENTS. xxix 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE GENTILES RECEIVED INTO THE CHURCH. FROM AFTER THE CONVERSION OF 
ST. PAUL TO THE DECREE OF THE FIRST COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM, INCLUDING 
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF PAUL AND BARN*ABAS. A. D. 40-A. D. 
48 OR 50. 

St. Peter at Lydda and Joppa — Healing of .ZEneas and raising of Dorcas — 
Mission of St. Peter to Cornelius — The first Gentile converts — Nature of 
this transaction — It is confirmed at Jerusalem — The Gospel preached at 
Antioch — Mission of Barnabas — He seeks out Saul of Tarsus — Acces- 
sion of Claudius — Herod Agrippa beheads St. James, and imprisons 
Peter, who is delivered by an angel — Death of Herod Agrippa I. — Paul's 
ministry in Syria and Cilicia — Barnabas and Saul at Antioch — The name 
of Christian — Mission of Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem — Paul's rap- 
ture and infirmity — The Church at Antioch — Saul and Barnabas separated 
for the mission to the Gentiles — Their first missionary journey — Preaching 
in Salamis and Paphos — Judgment on Elymas the sorcerer, and conversion 
of the proconsul Sergius Paulus — The name of Paul — Voyage to Pam- 
phylia — Passage of the Taurus — Desertion of John Mark — Apostleship of 
Barnabas — The Apostles at Antioch in Pisidia — Paul's discourse in the 
synagogue — Opposition of the Jews — The Gospel for the Gentiles — The 
Apostles driven from Antioch — Success and persecution at Iconium — 
Lycaonia — The miracle and discourse at Lystra — Derbe — Return of the 
Apostles — Ordination of Elders — Trouble with the Judaizing teachers — 
Appeal to the Church at Jerusalem — Decision of the Church — Return of 
Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, with Judas and Silas — Silas remains at 
Antioch — Christianity at Rome 744 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

ST. PAUL'S SECOND, OR GREAT, MISSIONARY JOURNEY, AND THE ENTRANCE OF 
THE GOSPEL INTO EUROPE. A. D. 49 OR 51-53 OR 54. 

Time and extent of the Second Missionary Journey — Quarrel of- Paul and 
Barnabas — Paul accompanied by Silas — Visit to Syria, Cilicia, and Lyca- 
onia — Timothy at Lystra — His ordination and circumcision — He goes forth 
with Paul and Silas — Journey through Phrygia and Galatia — Illness of 
Paul — His reception by the Galatians — The Churches of Galatia — Preach- 
ing in Bithynia and Asia divinely forbidden — St. Paul at Troas — Vision of 
the man of Macedonia — Luke joins the apostolic band — Voyage to Mace- 
donia — Neapolis — Philippi : its outer market and its Jewish oratory — 
Conversion of Lydia — The possessed damsel healed by Paul — Paul and 
Silas scourged and imprisoned — Conversion of the jailer — "Civis Romanus 
sum "—Release and departure of Paul and Silas — The Church of the Phil- 
ippians — Thessalonica, the Roman capital of Macedonia — Paul in the 
synagogue — Riot stirred up by the Jews — Departure of Paul and Silas- 
Teaching of St. Paul at Thessalonica — Berosa — Noble-mindedness of the 
Jews there — Tumult excited by Jews from Thessalonica — Paul leaves 
Beroea, and sails to Athens — He waits for Silas and Timotheus — His emo- 
tions at the sight of the city — His disputes with the Jews and Greeks in the 
synagogue and the Agora — Character of the Athenians — Paul encountered 
by the Stoics and Epicureans — His Discourse at the Areopagus — Paul's 



xxx COXTEXTS. 

revelation of the Unknown God, the Universal Father — Rebuke of idol- 
atry — Preaching of repentance and judgment by him whom God hath 
raised — Interruption of the discourse, and departure of St. Paul — Athenian 
converts — Corintjj : its importance in the history of Paul — The old Greek 
city and the new Roman colony — Its population of Greeks, Romans, and 
Jews — Paul lives at Corinth with Aquila and Priscilla, working with his 
own hands — His reasons for this course — Paul visits the synagogue — Arri- 
val of Silas and Timothy: Paul "constrained by the word" — His plain 
proclamation of Christ crucified — Rejected by the Jews, he turns to the 
Greeks — The Epistles to the Thessalonians written from Corinth — Paul's 
autograph salutation, to prove his letters genuine, and to add emphasis to 
truth — Gallio proconsul of Achaia — Tumult of the Jews against Paul — 
Gallio's impartial toleration — Paul's vow at Cenchrea, before sailing with 
Aquila and Priscilla — His voyage to Ephesus, and visit to the synagogue — 
Aquila and Priscilla remain at Ephesus — Paul lands at Ca?sarea, and goes 
up to Jerusalem — Connection of this visit with his future work — Contest 
with Judaizing teachers, and relief of Jewish Christians — Paul returns to 
Antioch : end of his Second Missionary Journey — Death of Claudius, and 
accession of Nero 7G7 

CHAPTER XL 

ST. PAUL'S THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY ; HIS ARREST AT JERUSALEM AND IM- 
PRISONMENT AT CiESAREA. A. D. 54 TO A. D. 60. 

Extent and duration of Paul's Third Circuit — His constant conflict with the 
Judaizers — Paul in Galatia — The Judaizing teachers — The Epistle to the 
Galalians written from Ephesus — The Church of Ephesus — Apollos and 
the Twelve Disciples, who knew only the baptism of John — Apollos at 
Corinth — Paul's arrival at Ephesus — He preaches in the synagogue, and is 
rejected by the Jews — Preaches in the school of Tyrannus — Spread of the 
Gospel through proconsular Asia — The special miracles of St. Paul, and 
his conflict with the magical arts — Defeat of the Jewish exorcists — Burn- 
ing of the books — Paul prepares to leave Ephesus — Mission of Timothy 
and Erastus to Macedonia and Achaia — Change in the Apostle's plan, 
owing to news from Corinth — State of the Corinthian Church— Paul's 
First Epistle to the Corinthians— Sequel to Paul's stay at Ephesus — The 
riot raised by Demetrius — Paul sets out for Macedonia — His labors at 
Alexandria Troas — Disappointed in not finding Titus there — He proceeds 
to Philippi and meets Titus — Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians — Its 
relations to the missions of Timothy and Titus — The Apostle's labors in 
Macedonia and Illj-ricum — His arrival at Corinth — The Epixtlc to the Ro- 
mans — Paul's views towards the "West, now that his work in the East was 
done — Character of the Roman Church — Paul's personal relations to the 
Church — Paul's journey from Corinth through Macedonia — Voyage from 
Philippi after the Passover — A week at Troas, and a farewell Sunday — 
Death and restoration of Eutychus — Voyage to Miletus — Discourse to the 
Ephesian Elders — From Miletus to Tyre — A week at Tyre, and another 
Sunday farewell — From Tyre to Csesarea — Philip the Deacon and his 
daughters — Prophecy of Agabus — Journey to Jerusalem — Paul's reception 
by the Churches — Dangers from the Judaizers — Their calumnies — Paul 
joins four Nazarites in their vow — Is assaulted in the Temple and rescued 



CONTENTS. xxxi 

by the tribune Lysias — His defences to the people and before the Sanhe- 
drim — Plot against his life — He is sent to Csesarea — His defence before 
Felix and two years' imprisonment at Csesarea — Felix superseded by 
Festus 795 

CHAPTER XL 

ST. PAUL'S FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. FROM HIS HEARING BEFORE FESTUS 

TO HIS RELEASE. A. D. 60-63. 

Results of St. Paul's imprisonment at Csesarea — Arrival of Porcius Festus 
as procurator — Paul's first hearing — He appeals to Csesar — Arrival of 
Agrippa and Bernice — Paul's Defence before Agrippa — Decision to send 
him to Rome — The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul — Minute truthful- 
ness of the narrative, as tested by recent investigations— Routes of maritime 
traffic — Paul's embarkation under the charge of Julius — His companions, 
Aristarchus and Luke — The voyage commenced toward autumn — In- 
tended course of the ship — Ccesarea to Sidon — Adverse winds — Voyage to 
Myra — Transference to the ship of Alexandria — From Cnidus into the 
open sea, then under the lee of Crete — Fair Havens — The season of navi- 
gation past — Unheeded warning of St. Paul — Attempt to run for Port 
Phcenix — The ship caught in a typhoon {Euroclydon) — Clauda — Prepara- 
tions against the storm — Undergirding — The Syrtes — The ship drifts on 
the starboard tack — Her course and rate — The fortnight's drift in Adria — 
St. Paul's vision in the night — Promise of escape — Signs of land — Anchor- 
ing during the night-^Paul's last encouragement — The dawn of day — 
Position of the ship in St. PauPs Bay, Malta — Running her on shore — 
The shipwreck and escape— St. Paul's former shipwrecks — His use of nau- 
tical images — The island of Melita {Malta) : its people, and its primate 
Publius — Reception and miracles of St. Paul — He spends here the three 
winter months — Voyage from Malta, in the "Castor and Pollux," to 
Syracuse, Bhegium, and Puteoli — Journey by land to Rome — The Chris- 
tians meet Paul at Appii Forum and the Three Taverns — Paul delivered 
to the Prsetorian prefect, Burrus — His condition as a prisoner in the Prse- 
torium — His two conferences with the Jews — Their rejection of the Gos- 
pel, terminating the first stage in the history of its foundation — Prophecy 
of their future restoration in the Epistle to the Romans — Paul preaches to 
the Gentiles — Conclusion of the Acts — St. Paul's two years' imprisonment 
at Rome — Causes for the delay of his trial — His labors and converts — Pro- 
gress of the Gospel at Rome — His companions daring his imprisonment : 
Luke, Aristarchus, Epaphras, Timothy, Mark, Demas, and Tychicus — 
Four Epistles written by St. Paul from Rome — Colossians, Philemon, and 
Ephesians, at the same time, and somewhat earlier than Philippians — The 
Church at Coloss^e, and the Epistle to the Colossians — Corruptions from 
Judaism, angel-worship, and asceticism— The supreme headship of Christ 
— Onesimus and Philemon — Paul's Epistle to Philemon— His teaching 
concerning slavery— The Epistle to the Ephesians— Points in common with 
Colossians— -Its special and sublime teaching— The Epistle to the Philippi- 
ans— Paul's prospects at this time : his danger, resignation, and hope- 
Changes at Rome : Burrus, Seneca, Poppsea— Probable acquittal and re- 
lease of th-e Apostle— Theory of a single imprisonment disproved— The 
Epistle to the Hebrews written at the close of Paul's first imprisonment— 



xxxii CONTENTS. 

Internal proofs of Pauline authorship — Allusions to the persecution by 
Ananus in Judaea — The martyrdom of St. James — Indications of time and 
place, and of the writer's conditions and intentions — The writer is contem- 
plating a visit to Jerusalem 823 

CHAPTER XLII. 

THE LAST DAYS OF ST. PAUL AND ST. PETER ; AND THE COMPLETE ESTABLISH- 
MENT OF THE CHURCH. FROM THE RELEASE OF ST. PAUL TO THE DESTRUC- 
TION OF JERUSALEM. A. D. 63-70. 

St. Paul's movements after his release — General indications of the Pastoral 
Epistles — Difficulties of detail — Scheme of Mr. Lewin : St. Paul sails for 
Jerusalem ; and goes thence, by Antioch and Asia Minor, visiting Colossae, 
to Ephesus — His labors at Ephesus — State of the Ephesian Church, as 
shown in the Epistles to Timothy — Church organization — Appearance of 
heresies — St. Paul's visit to Crete — Commissions of, and Epistles to, 
Timothy at Ephesus, and Titus in Crete — Charges to them — Nature of 
their office — The work of Timothy at Ephesus — His peculiar trials — New 
forms of error ; as developments of Judaism — Combination of superstition 
and philosophy, of ritualism and libertinism — Germs of future heresies — 
The Great Apostasy — Mysticism, asceticism, and gnosticism — Severity of 
Paul in rebuking these heresies — Further account of them in the Second 
Epistle to Timothy — Heresy of Hymenaeus and Philetus, that the Resurrec- 
tion was past — Moral corruption — Its prevalence at Crete — Epistle to Titus 
— Paul visits Macedonia and Corinth, and winters at Nicopolis — Gessius 
Floras in Judaea — The burning of Rome, and Nero's persecution of the 
Christians — Testimony of Tacitus to Christ and the Christians — Move- 
ments of St. Paul — Tradition of his journey to Spain — The presumptive 
arguments and direct testimony examined — Last stage of the Apostle's 
course — Second Epistle to Timothy — Paul probably arrested at Ephesus, on 
the information of Alexander the brass-founder — Indications of his route 
to Rome as a prisoner — St. Paul's second imprisonment at Rome — He is 
treated as a felon, unto bonds : but the Word of God is not bound — New 
converts: Pudens and Claudia; their supposed British origin — His first 
hearing and deliverance from "the Lion" — Was it before Nero in per- 
son ? — The interval before his death — Loneliness : constancy of Luke and 
apostasy of Demas — Mark — Motives of the urgent invitation to Timothy 
— Prospects of martyrdom — The Apostle's course is finished — His death 
and burial — Discussion of the date — Personal appearance and character of 
St. Paul — Early attacks on him — The Clementines — St. Peter associated 
by tradition with St. Paul in martyrdom — Review of his life — His last ap- 
pearance in the Acts — His probable occupations — Supposed connection 
with the Church of Corinth — His relations to the Churches of Asia — His 
First Epistle, written from Babylon — State of the Babylonian Jews — Sil- 
vanus and Mark the companions of Peter — Indications of intercourse with 
Paul — Designed harmony of the Epistle with Paul's teaching — Pauline 
style of the Epistle accounted for by Peter's study of Paul's Epistles and 
his connection with Silvanus — Discussion of the tradition of St. Peter's 
episcopate at Rome — Evidence of his late visit to Rome, and his crucifixion 
there under Nero — St. Peter not the Founder or resident head of the 
Church of Rome— His own testimony to the true Rock and spiritual Stones 



CONTENTS. xxxiii 

of the Church— The departure of Peter and Paul, and the end of Nero's 
reign, the epoch of the complete establishment of the Church, which now 
replaces the local habitation of God on earth ; fulfilling our Lord's pro- 
phecy of his coming in the destruction of Jerusalem, the type of his last 
Advent 854 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS, AFTER THE DE- 
STRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. A. D. 70 AND ONWARD. 

St. John, the survivor of the fall of Jerusalem— Three periods of his history 
—His early life— His life with Christ— The Sons of Thunder— Peter and 
John— St. John in the Acts— His departure from Judaea — St. John at Ephe- 
sus _His exile to Patmos— Traditions of St. John— Legend and time of 
his death— His title of Theologus—St. John the Evangelist— St. Andrew 
-James the son of Zebedee— St. James the Less— His identity with 
James the son of Alphseus and James the brother of our Lord — The Apostle 
Jude, the same as Lebbseus and Thaddeeus — Simon the Zealot, or the 
Canaanite — Identity of the epithets — Judas Iscariot, and his successor 
St. Matthias — Philip the Apostle— Bartholomew, the same as Nath- 
anael — Matthew, the same as Levi the Publican — Thomas, surnamed 
Didymus — Barnabas — Writers of the Gospels: when styled Evangelists: 
(i.) John, surnamed Mark; (ii.) Luke — The Seven "Deacons" : (i.) St. 
Stephen ; (ii.) Philip the Evangelist ; (iii.) Procorus ; (iv.) Nicanor ; 
(v.) Timon ; (vi.) Parmenas ; (vii.) Nicolas, and the sect of the Nicolai- 
tans — Titus and Timothy 885 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. FROM THE DEATH OF HEROD 
THE GREAT TO THE PRESENT DAY. 



BOOK X. 

SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS, FROM THE DEATH OF HEROD THE 
GREAT TO THE PRESENT DAY. THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. 
B. C. 4-A. D. 1871. 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. FROM THE DEATH OF HEROD TO THE DESTRUC- 
TION OF JERUSALEM. B. C. 4-A. D. 70. 

Family and testament of Herod — Archelaus and Antipas — Collisions with the 
Romans at Jerusalem — Augustus confirms Herod's will — Archelaus eth- 
narch of Juda3a — His tyranny and banishment — Herod Antipas tetrarch 
of Galilee — His relations to Herodias and John the Baptist — War with 
Aretas — Joins with Pilate in condemning Christ — His deposition and ban- 
ishment — Herod Philip tetrarch of Northern Persea — The city of Cffisarea 
Philippi— Judaea under Roman Procurators : (i.) Sabinus ; — (ii.) Copo- 
nius, under Quirinus (Cyrenius) prelect of Syria — Census — Pollution of 
the Temple ; — (iii.) Ambivius ; — (iv.) Annius Rufus ; — (v.) Valerius 
Gratus ; — (vi.) Pontius Pilatus — Caiaphas high-priest — Pilate's provo- 
cations and outrages against the Jews — Pilate and Christ — His recall and 



xxxiv CONTENTS. 

banishment — Vitellius prefect of Syria — His benefits to the Jews — Death 
of" Tibekius and accession of Caligula — Marcellus procurator of Judaea 
— The Jews persecute the Christians — Petroxius, prefect of Syria, or- 
dered to erect a statue of Caligula in the Temple — The emperor's claims to 
divine worship in all the provinces, resisted by the Jews — Tumults at Alex- 
andria — The Greeks encouraged by the prefect Flaccus — Sufferings and 
massacre of the Jews — Recall of Flaccus — Deputation to Caligula, headed 
by Philo — Philo's account of their extraordinary reception — Resistance in 
Judsea — The decree suspended — Death of Caligula — Herod Agrippa I. 
made king of Judaea by Claudius — Imperial edict of toleration for the 
Jews — Agrippa's Jewish policy — Fortification of Jerusalem — Martyrdom 
of St. James — Power and magnificence of Agrippa — Judsea again under 
Roman procurators — Herod Agrippa II. tetrarch of Eastern Palestine — 
His character and influence with the Jews — Agrippa and Paul — His 
splendid buildings — His sisters Berenice and Drusilla — Takes part with 
the Romans in the Jewish war — Retirement to Rome and death — Roman 
Procurators — Cuspius Fadus — Famine in Judaea — Paul and Barnabas at 
Jerusalem — Ventidius Cumanus — Tumult at the Passover — Felix — 
The Sicarii or Assassins — Murder of ^lie high-priest — General disorder — 
Felix and Paul — Tyranny of Felix — Massacre at Caesarea, a chief cause of 
the Jewish "War — Porcius Festus — His able and upright government — 
Judgment of St. Paul — Affair of Agrippa's Wall — Albinus and An anus — 
Persecution of the Christians, and death of St. James the Less — Anarchy 
at Jerusalem — Gessius Florus, the last and worst of the procurators — 
Insurrection at Jerusalem — Interposition of Costius Gallus — Mediation of 
Agrippa — Renunciation of allegiance and beginning of the Jewish War — 
Factions in Jerusalem — The assassins and the zealots — Siege of Jerusalem 
by Titus — Burning of the Temple, and destruction of the city — Close of 
the Jewish War 925 

CHAPTER XLV. 

SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS — CONCLUDED. 

Condition of the Jews after the close of the war with Rome — Dispersion of 
the race — Rise of the Patriarchate of Tiberias — The Prince of the Captivity 
— Sufferings of the Jews — Growth of Rabbinism — Revolts against the Ro- 
mans — The war against Hadrian — Bar-Cocheba — iElia Capitolina — The 
spiritual rule of the Patriarch — The Western Jews submit to him — The 
dominion of the Prince of the Captivity — His splendors — The Jews in 
China — The Babylonian Talmud — Rapid spread of Christianity — Zenobia — 
Laws of Constantine — Accession of Julian — Attempt to rebuild the Temple 
— Miraculous interruption of the work — Inroads of the Barbarians — Effect 
upon the Jews — The slave trade — Oppressive laws of Justinian — Efforts to 
throw out the Greek Scriptures — The Jews in Persia — Mohammed and the 
Jews — Condition of the Jews under the Gothic kings of Spain — Persecu- 
tions by the Councils of Toledo — Conquest of Spain by the Moors favor- 
able to the Jews — State of affairs in France in the seventh century — The 
Jews under the Caliphs — The Karaites — State of the Jews under Charle- 
magne — Hostility of the Christian clergy — The Iron Age of Judaism — 
Persecutions by the Sultans — Downfall and death of the Prince of the Cap- 
tivity — The Jews in Palestine in the twelfth century — Effects of the 



CONTENTS. xxxv 

Feudal System and the institutions of chivalry upon the Jews — Hatred of 
the clergy towards them — Usury becomes general among the Jews — Per- 
secutions of the Jews in Grenada by the Moors, and in Castile by the 
Christians — The Crusades — Sufferings of the Jews during these wars — 
Massacres in the cities of the Rhine — Interference of the Pope — Prosperity 
of the Jews in France — Expulsion from France by Philip Augustus — He 
allows them to return — Reign of Louis IX. — His laws respecting the Jews 
— The Rouelle — The Jews in Germany during the thirteenth century — 
Oppressive edict of the Council of Vienna — Persecuted by Philip the Fair 
of France — Sufferings during the Shepherds' War — The Black Plague — 
The Jews held accountable for it — Expelled from France by Charles VI. — 
The early English Jews — William Rufus favors them — Massacre of the 
Jews of London at the coronation of Richard I. — Massacres in other cities 
— The Jews under King John — The distinctive dress — Enmity of the 
Church — Extortions of Henry III. — The Jewish Parliament — Exactions of 
Jewish usurers — The Caorsini — The English Jews sold by the King — 
Hugh of Lincoln — Sufferings of the Jews during the Barons' Wars — Ex- 
pelled from England by Edward I. — The Jews in Spain during the thir- 
teenth century — Pedro the Cruel — Massacres in the Spanish cities — Cruel 
efforts to convert the Jews — Harsh laws respecting them — Ferdinand and 
Isabella — Crisis of the fate of the Jews in Spain — The "New Christians" 
— Establishment of the Inquisition — Persecutions of the Jews by that tri- 
bunal — They appeal to the Pope — Result of their appeal — Thomas de Tor- 
quemada — Expulsion of the Jews from Spain — Frightful sufferings of the 
exiles— Sufferings in Portugal — Perfidy of the Portuguese King — Disastrous 
effect of these persecutions upon Spain — History of the Jews in Italy — A 
Jewish Pope — Policy of the Papacy towards them — The Jews in the 
Turkish dominions — They possess the trade of the Levant — Efforts to put 
an end to usury — The introduction of the art of printing — Success of the 
Jews in this art — The Reformation — Its effect upon the condition of the 
Jews — The Jews in Holland — The petition to Cromwell — Admission of 
the Jews into England by Charles II. — False Messiahs — Benedict Spinoza 
— The Polish Jews — The Jews in old Russia — Laws of Frederick the 
Great — The English Jews of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — 
The Jews in the two Sicilies — Joseph II. removes their burdens — The 
Jews in France under Louis XIV. — The French Revolution — Jews de- 
clared citizens of the Republic — Action of Napoleon I. — The great Sanhe- 
drin of 1807 — The French Jews confirmed in their rights — The German 
Jews of the present century — The Jews in Russia — Concessions to them 
by the Czar — The Jews made eligible to civil office in England — A Jewish 
Lord Mayor — Members of Parliament — The Mortara case — Prosperity of 
the Jews in the United States — Statement of the number of Jews in the 
world 9S3 

Appendix 1000 



PAET I. 

The Old Testament History. 

FROM THE CREATION TO THE RETURN OF THE 
JEWS FROM CAPTIVITY. 



BOOK I. 



FEOM ADAM TO ABRAHAM — THE PROBATION OF THE HUMAN RACE. 

[a. m. 1—2008. b. c. 4004—1996.] 



0' 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CREATION — MAN'S PROBATION AND FALL. 

if^OLY Scripture assigns no date for the epoch of the Creation. 
The books of Moses were designed for a people who believed 
implicitly in God, and they open with the simple statement 
J 1 that God created the heavens and the earth " in the begin- 
ning" It is stated that previous to this the condition of the 
heavens and the earth was chaotic ; and in relating the manner in 
which the Creation was accomplished, the sacred narrative divides the 
great work into six successive stages or periods, called days, and 
shows us that the Creator carried on this work in a progressive 
manner, beginning with the lowest and closing with the highest forms 
of being. Though these stages are called days by Moses, it is not 
certain that the word thus employed actually means a period of 
twenty-four hours. 

The main object of Scripture seems to be to establish the fact that 
neither the heavens nor the earth (by which is meant all the objects 
that we are cognizant of both by sight and reason) existed from 
eternity, but that they had a beginning. It does not tell us how 
remote the beginning is from any age of the w r orld known to Science 
or to History, but it insists on the reality of a beginning for the 
Universe. 

21 



22 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The Scriptural history of Creation is a history of phenomena. 
These phenomena are so spoken of in the plain language of common 
sense, as to leave the reader's judgment open for the reception of 
scientific facts and laws ; but, whatever wonders science may reveal 
in heaven and earth, the simple truth remains that God created 
them all. 

This might have seemed enough for the basis of our belief in God 
as the Being in whose hands we are. But as a whole can only be 
comprehended through its parts, we are further taught the order in 
which the various portions of the created universe were produced ; 
and that this order was progressive, from the lowest to the most per- 
fect forms of being. From the first simple fact of creation by God 
at a definite time, we are led on to a second point of time, when the 
earth (for the heaven is not now mentioned) existed indeed, but in a 
state of confusion and emptiness. Its materials were not yet arranged 
in order, and it was void of the forms of being that were to cover its 
surface. Science clearly shows that our globe has passed through 
such a stage. Its materials were fused by heat — the great sustaining 
power of all life; and from that state the outer portions hardened into 
what is called the earth's crust, on the surface of which the vapors 
began to condense into water, while they still shut out the light of 
heaven. This watery chaos is the stage from which the more detailed 
narrative, which is addressed to the reader's religious faith, and not 
to his scientific curiosity, begins. 

The duration of this chaos is not so much as hinted at in the 
Bible; neither is there any sure ground for determining what is 
actually meant by the term "day." We may, therefore, adopt the 
'following account of the works that were performed in each particu- 
lar "day." 

On the First Day went forth ' the Word of God— "Let there be 
Light, and Light Was." Light broke over the face of the chaos : 
we are not told from what source, but probably through the floating 
vapors being now rare enough to be penetrated by the sun's light. 
It shone upon each part of the earth's surface that was exposed to it 
in turn, and so "God divided the light from the darkness; and God 
called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the 
evening and the morning were the First Day." 

As yet the watery vapors, raised by intense heat, formed an 
envelop of mist around the earth. They were now parted into two 
divisions, those which lie upon and hang about the surface of the 
earth, and those which float high above it. The blue heavens became 



THE CREATION. 



23 



visible, like a crystal vault, called the firmament (literally expanse), 
because its appearance is that of an overspread covering, elsewhere 
likened to a tent. But the word chosen no more implies that the sky 
is a solid vault, than that it is a canvas tent. It forms, to the eve, 
the partition between the upper and lower heavens, between " the 
waters under the firmament and the waters above the firmament." 
Such was the work of the Second Day. 

Next began the tremendous upheavings and sinkings of the earth's 
crust, by the forces at work within it, which formed it into mountains 
and valleys, and pro- 
vided channels and 
basins for the waters 
on its surface. These 
were now gathered 
into collections, 
which were called 
Seas, while the 
name of Earth was 
applied, in a nar- 
rower sense than 
before, to the por- 
tions exposed above 
the waters. On 
these portions the 
germs of vegetation 
began at once to 
burst into life, form- 
ing grass and fruit 
trees. These had 
their seed in them- 
selves, after their 
kind. Here is the 

great law of reproduction according to species, on which depends 
the order of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. This was the work 
of the Third Day. 

On the Fourth Day the Sun and Moon were seen in the firmament 
of heaven. The fact of their previous creation is involved in the 
stability of the earth as a member of the Solar System, as well as in 
the appearance of light on the first day. It is not said that they were 
first created on the fourth day ; and of the stars, many of which must 
have existed myriads of years before their light reached the earth, it 




GARDEN OF EDEN. 



24 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

is simply said, " He made the stars also," not when he made them. 
In fact, the " fourth day " seems to mark the period during which 
the air was cleared of its thick vapors, by the action of the plants and 
other causes, so that the heavenly bodies became visible. Stress is 
laid on their ruling as well as lighting the day and night. God said, 
" Let them be for signs, and tor seasons, and for days and years." 
Thev were designed, as they have ever since been used, to mark out 
the periods of human life ; to inculcate the great lesson, that " to every 
thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." 

Vegetables could live and flourish in a thick, moist atmosphere; 
and the lower animal organizations could already be associated with 
them, though they had not been mentioned as yet, because not out- 
wardly visible. But now the larger animals appeared. First, the 
waters teemed with the " creeping things," and the " great sea mon- 
sters," with fishes and reptiles. Birds were produced at the same 
time, and might have been seen flying over the waters and in the 
open firmament of heaven. This was the work of the Fifth Day. 

The Sixth Day witnessed the creation of the higher animals and 
Max. These were formed out of the earth, the chemical constituents 
of which are, in the main, the same as those of animal bodies. The 
latter, in fact, derive their materials from the vegetables, which have 
first derived theirs from the earth and water; and all render back 
their gaseous and fluid components to air and water, and their solids 
to the earth. 

Max, the last created, for whom all the previous work was but a 
preparation, differed from all other creatures in being made like God. 
The depth of meaning contained in this statement, though partly 
revealed in the Son of God, the true head of our race, remains to be 
developed hereafter. But at least it includes intellectual and spiritual 
likeness, intelligence, moral power, and holiness. To man was given 
dominion over all other animals ; and both to him and them the 
plants were given for food. All were appointed to continue their 
species according to their own likeness, and all were blessed with 
fertility ; but on the human race was pronounced the special bless- 
ing : — " Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue 
it :" — so that Man's lordship of the creation is a part of his original 
constitution. 

On each of the works of the last four days God pronounced the 
blessing that it was very good ; perfect in its kind, useful in its pur- 
pose, and entirely subject to his holy laws. 

On the Seventh Day God ceased from his finished work, rested, 



THE CREATION. 25 

and blessed the day by the perpetual institution of the Sabbath. 
His rest, however, was not an entire cessation from activity. He had 
done creating, but he continued to sustain and bless his creatures. 
" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," said Christ ; and thus 
this seventh period finds its perfect analogy in the day for which he 
also gave the law, " to do good on the Sabbath day." 

Having made man, God called his name Adam, and placed him in' 
a garden which "the Lord God had planted eastward in Eden," for 
the purpose of dressing it and keeping it. Adam was permitted to 
eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden but one, which was called 
the " tree of the knowledge of good and evil." What this was, it is 
impossible to say. Its name would seem to indicate that it had the 
power of bestowing the consciousness of the difference between good 
and evil ; in the ignorance of which man's innocence and happiness 
consisted. The prohibition to taste the fruit of this tree was enforced 
by the menace of death. There was also another tree, which was 
called the " tree of life." Some suppose it to have acted as a kind of 
medicine, and that by the continual use of it, our first parents, not 
created immortal, were preserved from death. 

While Adam was in the Garden of Eden, the beasts of the field 
and the fowls of the air were brought to him to be named, and what- 
soever he called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 
Thus the power of fitly designating objects of sense was possessed by 
the first man, a faculty which is generally considered as indicating 
mature and extensive intellectual resources. Upon the failure of a 
companion, suitable for Adam, among the creatures thus brought to 
him to be named, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, 
and took one of his ribs from him, which he fashioned into a woman, 
and brought her to the man. " And Adam said, This is now bone 
of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, be- 
cause she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his 
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife : and they shall 
be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and 
were not ashamed." 

The female created to be a " help meet for him," was made out of 
the substance of man's own body, whence she was called woman 
(Ishah, the feminine of Ish, man). This is given now, and long 
afterward used by Christ, as a reason for the law of marriage, which 
is a divine institution, plainly involved in the fact that one woman 
was created for one man. " Therefore shall a man leave his father and 
his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they, shall be one 



26 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

flesh/' From these words, coupled with the circumstances attendant 
on the formation of the first woman, we may evolve the following 
principles : — (1), The unity of man and wife, as implied in her being 
formed out of man, and as expressed in the words " one flesh ;" (2), 
the indissolubleness of the marriage bond except on the strongest 
grounds ; (3), monogamy, as the original law of marriage, resulting 
from there havin^ been but one original couple, as is forcibly ex- 
pressed in the subsequent references to this passage by our Lord, and 
St. Paul ; (4), the social equality of man and wile, as implied in the 
terms ish and ishah, the one being the exact correlative of the other, 
as well as in the words " help meet for him ;" (5), the subordination 
of the wife to the husband, consequent upon her subsequent formation; 
and (6) the respective duties of man and wife, as implied in the words 
" help meet for him." 

The exact location of the garden in which man was placed by his 
Creator is not known with certainty, though a general idea of it may 
be gained from the sacred narrative. Its name has come down to us, 
and at least two of its four rivers are identified with the Tigris and 
Euphrates. Their easy and pleasant occupation was to keep and 
dress the garden, or, as the Septuagint calls it, Paradise. This word, 
of Persian origin, describes an extensive tract of pleasure land, some- 
what like an English park) and the use of it suggests a wider view of 
man's first abode than a garden. Perfect as he was in physical con- 
stitution, man might roam over a very extensive region, such as that 
which lies between the highlands of Armenia and the Persian Gulf. 
Here he might find occupation for his mind in the study of the crea- 
tures made subject to him, and so be qualified to name them, as he did 
when God brought them before him. This suggestion also removes a 
difficulty arising out of the narrow range of climate in which so many 
varieties of animals are supposed to have lived. At all events, the 
researches of science point to the highlands south of the Caucasus as 
the primeval seat of the human race. 

Man was placed in Paradise upon the condition that he should re- 
strain his appetite and self-will. God gave him every means of 
gratifying every lawful taste, and simply forbade him to eat of the 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "In the day that thou eatcst 
thereof, thou shalt surely die." The vast freedom which was granted 
him sufficiently proved the goodness of the Creator, and the restriction 
taught him that he was to live under a law ; and that law was en- 
forced by a practical penalty, of which he was mercifully warned. 
AVe must not regard the prohibition merely as a test of obedience, nor 



MAN'S PROBATION AND FALL. 2? 

the penalty as arbitrary. The knowledge forbidden to him was of a 
kind which would corrupt his nature — so corrupt it, as to make him 
unfit, as well as unworthy to live forever. 

Satan, the chief of the fallen spirits, seeking to destroy the work of 
God, now endeavored to drag man down to his own level. He 
entered the garden in the form of a serpent and, addressing himself to 
Eve, urged her to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree, telling her 
that death would not follow the commission of the act, " for God doth 
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, 
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil/' The woman list- 
ened to the voice of the deceiver, ate of the fruit of the tree, and fell 
into the three-fold sin of sensuality, pleasure, and ambition. Having 
eaten she gave of the fruit to her husband, and he fell with her. 

In one point the devil had truly described the effect of eating the 
forbidden fruit. "Their eyes were opened." They had " become as 
gods" in respect of that knowledge of evil, as well as of good, which 
God had reserved to himself and mercifully denied to them. They 
became conscious of the working of lawless pleasure in place of purity, 
in the very constitution given them by God to perpetuate their race ; 
and they were ashamed because they were naked. Toward God they 
felt fear in place of love, and they fled to hide themselves from his 
presence among the trees of the garden. 

Thus they were already self-condemned before God called them 
forth to judgment. Then the man cast the blame upon the woman, 
and the woman upon the serpent ; and God proceeded to award a 
righteous sentence to each. 

The judgment passed upon the serpent is symbolical of the con- 
demnation of the devil. The creature, as Satan's instrument and type, 
is doomed to an accursed and degraded life ; and that enmity that has 
ever since existed between him and man is the symbol of the conflict 
between the powers of hell and all that is good in the human race. 

The woman is condemned to subjection to her husband, and sorrow 
and suffering in giving birth to her children ; but she had the consola- 
tion of hearing that her seed was to conquer in the battle with the 
serpent, crushing its head, after the reptile had inflicted a deadly 
wound upon his heel. 

" The man is shut up to a life of toil, and the earth is cursed for his 
sake, to bring forth, like himself, evil weeds, that require all his exer- 
tions to keep them down. But, as before, a promise is added ; his 
labor shall not be without its reward — " in the sweat of thy brow, 
thou shalt cat bread" 



2S 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



Reminded of the doom they had incurred, though its execution was 
postponed — " dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return " — and 
clothed by God's goodness with the skins of beasts, they were driven 
out of Paradise. An angelic guard with a flaming sword debarred 
them from returning to taste of the tree of life ; for it would have per- 
petuated their suffering. 

But yet they had received the revelation of eternal life. The curse 
upon the serpent and the promise to the woman, pointed clearly to a 
Redeemer, who should be born of a woman, and, by his own suffering 
should destroy the power of the devil ; and here we have the first 
prophecy of the Messiah. Henceforth the woman lived in the expec- 
tation of the promised seed, who should make her the mother of a 
truly living race. "And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because 

she was the mother 
of all living." 

"And Adam knew 
Eve his wife ; and 
she conceived, and 
bare Cain, and said, 
I have gotten a man 
from the Lord. And 







THE SACRIFICE OF ABEL. 



she a^ain bare his 
brother Abel. And 
Abel was a keeper 
of sheep, but Cain 
was a tiller of the 
ground." Gen. iv. 1-2. 
Here we see the be- 
ginning of the two 
great branches of 
productive industry, pursued by men in an early state of society, — 
the agricultural and the pastoral. 

The two brothers at the same time brought the " first fruits " of 
their labors to offer them to God. Abel had led a life of purity, while 
Cain had passed his days in wickedness. . Therefore God preferred 
Abel's offering to that of Cain, and Cain, filled with jealous rage, fell 
upon his brother and slew him. 

This first crime was promptly punished. The sullen indifference 
of Cain's reply to God's demand, " Where is Abel thy brother ?" was 
probably affected, to conceal the remorse which has ever haunted the 
murderer. The blood of the victim seems always to have that power, 



MAN'S PROBATION AND FALL. 



29 




JABAL'S TENTS AND CATTLE. 



which is ascribed to the blood of Abel, of " crying to God from the 
ground." The cry implied is clearly that for vengeance ; and the 
same cry proceeds from the blood of all the martyrs. Cain was 
doomed to a new infliction of the primal curse. To Adam the earth 
yielded its fruit, though with toil and sweat ; but to Cain, as if indig- 
nant at the outrage done her by his brother's blood, the earth was 
cursed for him again, refusing to yield her strength under his tillage, 
or even to grant him an abode at the scene of his crime. But even in 
this aggravation of the curse, we still see the mercy which turns the 
curse into a blessing ; for it was no doubt an incentive to those me- 
chanical arts which were first practised by the family of Cain. 

Cain received his doom in the same hardened spirit of impenitence, 
filling up the measure of his unbelief by the cry, "My iniquity is too 
great to be forgiven." While lamenting his expulsion from the 
abodes of men and from the face of God, his great fear is for his life, 
lest men should slay him. To quiet this fear, God gave him a special 
sign that he should not be slain (for such seems to be the true meaning 
of the "mark set on Cain"), and pronounced a sevenfold punishment 
on any one who should kill him. With his person thus protected, 
he was driven from his home, as " a fugitive and a vagabond in the 
earth." 

Cain directed his steps to the east of Eden, and settled in the land 



30 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of Nod, that is, banishment. He became the ancestor of a race, whose 

history is recorded in a very striking contrast with that of the chosen 

race of Seth. The two genealogies, when placed side by side, are as 

follows : — 

Adam. 



Cain. Seth. 

I I 

Enoch. (Chanoch). Enos. 

I I 

Irad. Cainan. 

I I 

Mehujael. Mahalaleel 

I I 

Metlmsael. Jared. 

I I 

Adah_Lamech = Zillah. Enoch { Chanoch). 



Jabal. Jubal. Tubal Cain. Naamah. Methuselah. 

I 
Lamech. 

I 
Noah. 

The resemblances in the names of the two families seem a natural 
consequence of the use of significant names at a time when language 
had acquired no great variety ; and in both cases several of the names 
have a sense natural at that age, increase and possession. The different 
number of generations suggests that the period between the children 
of Lamech and the flood was occupied with the development of the 
inventions ascribed to them, by their unnamed descendants. The 
only personal facts of their history are, the foundation by Cain of the 
first city, which he named after his son Enoch; the polygamy of La- 
mech ; and the occupations of his sons, of whom Jabal was the first 
nomad herdsman, Jubal the inventor of musical instruments, both 
stringed and wind, and Tubal-Cain the first smith. It deserves 
notice also, that Lantech's address to his wives is the earliest example 
of poetry; it forms three couplets of parallel clauses. The great con- 
trast, however, between the two races, is in their social and moral 
condition. 

Let us now dismiss the family of Cain, and resume the history of 
the chosen race* 

* Scripture Chronology. — Independently of scientific evidence, the follow- 
ing are our data for determining the chronological relations of primeval history 
to the Christian era : 

1. From the Creation to the Deluge, the generations of the patriarchs form our 
only guide. These, however, are given differently in different copies of the 



MAN'S PROBATION AND FALL. 31 

"And Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son." This new 
son, who was given to Eve " instead of Abel, whom Cain slew/' was 
hence named Seti-i (properly Sheth, i. e., appointed). The list of his 
race is headed with a remarkable phrase. Adam was made in the 
likeness of God; and he begat a son in his own likeness, after his 
image. Adam handed down to Seth and his descendants the promise 
of mercy, faith in which became the distinction of God's children. 
This seems to be the meaning of the statement that, in the days and 
in the family of Seth, " men began to call upon the name of Jehovah." 
For the "name" of any great personage is the symbol of allegiance 
to him — " jurare in nomen" — and so it is used repeatedly in the Old 
Testament of the name of God, and in the New continually of the 
name of Christ, " the name which is above every name," at which 

Scriptures ; the sum being, in the LXX. 606 years longer, and in the Samaritan 
Pentateuch 349 years shorter, than in the received Hebrew text. The ancient 
chronologers give further variations. 

2. From the Deluge to the death of Joseph, and thence to the Exodus, the patri- 
archal years are again our chief guide ; but other data are obtained from various 
statements respecting the interval from the call of Abraham to the giving of the 
law and the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt (Gen. xv. 13 ; Exod. xii. 41 ; 
Acts vii. 6 ; Gal. iii. 17). The main point in dispute here is whether 430 years 
was the whole period from the call of Abraham to the Exodus, or only the time 
of the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt. 

3. From the Exodus to the building of Solomon's Temple, the interval is posi- 
tively stated in the received Hebrew text, as 480 years (1 Kings vi. 1). But the 
reading is disputed ; it is alleged to be inconsistent with the 450 years assigned 
by St. •Paul to the Judges (Acts xiii. 20) ; and the longer period is made out by 
adding together the numbers given in the Book of Judges. Some chronologers, 
on the other hand, compute from the many genealogies which we have for this 
period. 

4. From the building of the Temple to its Destruction and the Captivity of 
Zedekiah, we have the annals of the kings of Israel and Judah. Here the diffi- 
culties are so slight, that the principal chronologers only differ by 15 years in 
nearly 500. 

5. Tiie Epoch of tiie Destkuctton of the Temple is fixed by a concur- 
rence of proofs, from sacred and profane history, with only a variation of one, or 
at 1 lie most two years, between b. c. 588 and 586. Clinton's date is June, b. C. 
5S7. From this epoch we obtain for the building of Solomon's Temple the date 
of about b. c. 1012.* 

From this point the reckoning backward is, of course, affected by the differ.. 
(ii ccs already noticed. Out of these have arisen three leading systems of 
chronology. 

1. The Rabbinical, a system handed down traditionally by the Jewish doctors, 
places the Creation 244 years later than our received chronology, in B. 0. 3750, 
and the Exodus in b. c. 1314. This leaves from the Exodus to the budding of 

* Thi! highest computation, that of Hales, makos tho dato d. c. 1027. 



32 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

" every knee shall bow and every tongue confess." From the very 
beginning, then, of the race whose history is traced in Scripture, God 
was never without the public recognition of his name and cause by 
true worshippers, and such we find first in the family of Seth, in con- 
trast to that of Cain. 

Of Enos (man or multitude), Caixax [possession), Mahalaleel 
(praise of God), and Jared (or Jered, descent), no particulars are 
recorded. But "Exoch, the seventh from Adam," stands conspicu- 
ous among the race of Seth. After the statement, emphatically 
repeated, that he " walked with God," we are told, " he was not, for 
God took him." The former phrase is also applied to Xoah, among 
the antediluvian patriarchs, and is often used to describe a life of 
close communion with God, or, in one word, godliness. The apostle 

the Temple an interval of only 300 years, a term calculated chiefly from the 
genealogies, and only reconciled with the numbers given in the Book of Judges 
b}* the most arbitrary alterations. Genealogies, however, are no safe basis for 
chronology, especially when, as can be proved in many cases, links are omitted 
in their statement. When we come to examine them closely, we find that many 
are broken without being in consequence technically defective as Hebrew 
genealogies. A modern pedigree thus broken would be defective, but the prin- 
ciple of these genealogies must have been different. A notable instance is that 
of the genealogy of our Saviour given by St. Matthew. In this genealogy Jorani 
is immediately followed by Ozias, as if his son — Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah 
being omitted.* In Ezra's genealogy (Ezra vii. 1—5 ; there is a similar omission, 
which in so famous a line can scarcely be attributed to the carelessness of a 
copyist. There are also examples of a man being called the son of a remote an- 
cestor in a statement of a genealogical forin.f We cannot, therefore, verfture to 
use the Hebrew genealogical lists to compute intervals of time, except where we 
can prove each descent to be immediate. But even if we can do this, we have 
still to be sure that we can determine the average length of each generation. 

2. The Short or Received Chronology is that which has been generally followed 
in the West since the time of Jerome, and has been adopted in the margin of the 
authorized English version, according to the system of its ablest advocate, Arch- 
bishop Ussher. Its leading data are, first, the adoption of the numbers of the 
Hebrew text for the patriarchal genealogies ; secondly, the reckoning of the 430 
years from the call of Abraham to the Exodus ; and, lastly, the adhering to the 
480 years for the period from the Exodus to the building of the Temple. As we 
are only giving a general account of these different systems, and not attempting 
their full discussion, we cannot now explain how the last datum is reconciled 
with the 450 years assigned by St. Paul to the Judges, or with the numbers 

* Mitt. i. 8. That this is not an accidental omission of a copyist is evident from the specification of the 
number of generations from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonish Captivity, and thence to 
Christ, in each case fourteen generations. Probably these missing names were purposely left out to 
make the number for the interval equal to that of the other intervals, such an omission being obvious, 
aud not liable to cause error. 

t Gen, xxxix. 5, compared with xxviii. 2, 5; 1 Chr. xxvi. 24; 1 Kings xix. 10, compared with 2 Kings 
ix. 2, 14. 



MAN'S PROBATION AND FALL 



33 



explains it, that " he pleased God," and traces Enoch's piety to his 
faith in God, as the only true God and the hearer of prayer, for 
" without faith it is impossible to please him : for he that cometh to 
God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that 
diligently seek him." 

But Enoch's life was not all spent in quiet meditation ; he " walked 
with God " in the path of active duty and the courageous maintenance 
of the cause of God amid an ungodly race. This we learn from the 
Apostle Jude, who describes the antediluvian world as already in- 
fected with those vices which came to a head in the days of JSToah, 
which are ever the curse of advanced civilization, and which will 
again mark the last age of the world. Against these sins Enoch 
prophesied, and warned their perpetrators of the coming of the Lord 
to execute judgment upon them. He stands conspicuous, therefore, 
as the First of the Prophets. 

Enoch's faith was rewarded by a special favor in the mode of his 
departure from the world. " He walked with God " till " he was 
not, for God had taken him." The men to whom he prophesied 



obtained from their annals. The great chronologer Petavius is in substantial 
agreement with Ussher ; but, for reasons which cannot now be stated, he places 
the Exodus and the call of Abraham each forty years earlier, the Deluge and the 
Creation each twenty years later, than Ussher. 

We have given Ussher's dates in the text of this work, as those most com- 
monly received ; but for the reasons already mentioned, we believe that the 
Jewish genealogies are no safe basis for chronology, and that it is, therefore, 
impossible to assign any real dates to the Creation and the patriarchal history. 

3. The Long Chronology has been, in recent times, the most formidable com- 
petitor of the short system. Its leading advocates are Hales, Jackson, and Des 
Vignolles. With some minor differences, they agree in adopting the Septuagint 
numbers for the ages of the patriarchs, and the long interval from the Exodus to 
the building of the Temple. Their arguments for the former view are very ably 
answered by Clinton, who adopts the short period from the Creation to the call 
of Abraham, and the 430 years on to the Exodus, but reckons 612 years from 
thence to the foundation of the Temple. 

The following table exhibits the principal dates as given by the leading modern 
chronoloo-ers : — / 





Short System. 


Long 


System. 




Ussher. 
B. c. 
4004 
2349 
1921 
1491 
1012 
588 


Petavius. 
B. c. 
39S3 
2327 
1961 
1531 
1012 
589 


Clinton. 
B. c. 
4138 
2482 
2055 
1625 
1013 
587 


Hales 
B. C. 
5411 
3155 
•3>7S 
1648 
1027 
586 


Jackson. 
B. C. 

5426 

3170 
•J0'_'3 
1593 
1014 

5m; 


Flood 


Call of Abraham 




Foundation of Temple 







34 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

missed him, perhaps at the very moment they were planning his 
death : — " he was not found, because God had translated him." The 
apostle who uses this phrase leaves no doubt as to its meaning : " By 
faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death." This dis- 
tinction was shared by Elijah alone of all the human race ; and we 
may probably infer that, as in his case, so in Enoch's, the miracle 
was a testimony to the divine mission of the prophet, as well as a 
reward of the piety of the man. 

Methuselah (a man of arms), the son of Enoch, is noted as 
having reached the greatest age of any man. He was contemporary 
with Adam for 243 years, and with Noah for 600. It is interesting 
to observe that he died in the very year of the Deluge. Was he " a 
righteous man taken away from the coming evil," or, having lapsed 
into wickedness, did he perish with them that believed not? We are 
allowed to suppose the former, from the probability that he would 
have been saved in the ark, with the rest of Noah's family, had he 
been still alive. His son Lamech (properly Lemech), the father of 
Noah, died five years before the deluge. 



TIMES OF NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 35 




f) 



CHAPTER II. 

THE TIMES OP NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 
[a. m. 1056-2006. b. c. 2948-1998.] 

iAMECH, the last mentioned of the antediluvian patriarchs, 
II t begat a son, whom he called Noah. This name is very sig- 
P*r nificant. It means rest or comfort, and his father gave it by 
prophetic inspiration, saying, " This shall comfort us, con- 
cerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground 
which the Lord hath cursed." These words seem to express a deeper 
weariness than that arising from the primal curse, from which indeed 
the age of Noah brought no deliverance. But it did 
944.8 i qqs bring the comfort of rest from the wickedness w T hich had 
now reached its greatest height. 
The history of the world previous to the flood covers a 
period of 1656 years, of which we know little save that the earth 
was full of wickedness. We have seen the progress made by the 
children of Cain in the invention of implements of art and industry, 
and we cannot doubt that they were adopted by the race of Seth. 
The world, therefore, must have made great progress in civilization 
and knowledge in this period ; the arts must have reached a ripeness 
of which the record, from its scantiness, conveys no adequate concep- 
tion ; and the destruction caused bv the flood must have obliterated a 
thousand discoveries, and left men to recover again by slow and patient 
steps the ground they had lost. But the race of Seth also became 
infested with the vices of the Cainites. This seems to be the only 
reasonable sense of the intercourse between " the sons of God " (Sons 
of the Elohim) and " the daughters of men " (daughters of the Adam). 
Laying aside all ideas of the union of superhuman beings with mortal 
women, we may safely assume that both parties were of the human 
race. Up to this time the family of Seth, who remained true to the 
worship of God, and the family of Cain, who had lived only for the 
world, had carefully held aloof from eacli other; but now a mingling 
of the two races took place, which resulted in the thorough corruption 
of the former, who, falling away, plunged into the deepest abyss of 
wickedness. We are also told that this union produced a stock con- 
spicuous for physical strength and courage, a well-known result of the 



36 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




THE ARK. 



intermixture of different races. The reader must be careful not to 
confound these " mighty men of old, men of renown/' with the 
" giants" (Heb. Nephilim), from whom they are expressly dis- 
tinguished. 

The antediluvian world had reached a desperate pitch of wicked- 
ness, the distinguishing features of which were lust and brutal outrage, 
and the climax of which was reached in the fusion of the two races. 
So great indeed was this wickedness, so utter and abominable the de- 
pravity of the people, that we are told that it " repented Jehovah that 
he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.'' 
Though this language can be accepted only in a figurative sense, it 
clearly establishes the fact that the wickedness of man had become so 
great as to put an end to the forbearance of Jehovah, who resolved to 
destroy the existing race of human creatures, as if putting an end to 
an experiment which had failed. The forbearance of the Almighty 
had been abused, and men had only grown more wicked during its 
continuance. Jehovah said, " My spirit shall not always strive with 



TIMES OF NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 37 

(or remain or rule in) man (the Adam), for that they are but flesh ; 
and their days shall be an hundred and twenty years." The general 
sense of this declaration seems to be : "I will take away from man 
the life I at first gave him, since he has corrupted himself to mere 
flesh, and I will limit his time on earth to one hundred and twenty 
years." That the period thus defined was a space for repentance, 
seems clear from the context, the opinion that it works out the future 
length of human life does not at all agree with the duration of the 
lives of the post-diluvian patriarchs. 

Measures of amelioration would not meet the case. God resolved on 
clearing the earth entirely from its wicked inhabitants. He did not 
mean to utterly destroy the earth or the human race, but merely to 
remove the wickedness which then existed. The earth was to survive 
the terrible penalty it was to pay, and enough living creatures were to 
be preserved through the terrible ordeal to replenish the earth with 
men and beasts again. In these respects the deluge is distinguished 
from the last conflagration. 

The family chosen for this experiment was that of Noah, who is 
described as a "just man and perfect (upright or sincere) in his gen- 
erations," who had " found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Like 
Enoch, he " walked with God." The wickedness of the world ap- 
palled him, and he vehemently denounced it, or preached against it. 
He was the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, as they 
are named in the order of precedence ; though Japheth seems to have 
been the oldest and Shem the youngest. They were born in the 500th 
year of Noah's life, and like their father remained true to the worship 
of Jehovah. 

About this time, and, perhaps, at the beginning of the hundred and 
twenty years given to man for repentance, God informed Noah of his 
intention of destroying the earth and its inhabitants by water, and 
commanded him to make an ark of gopher wood, in which he and 
his family and a certain number of all the living creatures on the 
earth were to take refuge, and thus escape the impending doom of the 
world. Astounding as was this revelation, Noah did not for one 
moment doubt it, but at once set to work to construct the ark accord- 
ing to the plan given to him by God, and in spite of the scoffs and 
jeers of the people, in whose midst he worked, continued his labors 
until they were finished. Meanwhile, he continued to preach to the 
doomed people, now mingling his denunciations of their wickedness 
with appeals to them to repent and flee from the wrath to conic, and 
his ark bore constant witness to the sincerity of his utterances. And 



38 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

so " the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the 
ark was preparing." But it waited in vain. The warning was un- 
heeded, and men continued in their wicked ways until the end came. 
At the beginning of the six hundredth year of Noah's 

2948-1998 life ' tIlG WaS com P letecl ; an d on the tenth day of 

the second month of that year he entered into it, by 
God's command, with his wife, his three sons, and their wives — eight 
persons in all — who were saved from the flood. They took with 
them the food they would require, which was as yet of a vegetable 
nature. They also took two (a pair) of every animal ; but of clean 
animals (for the use of sacrifice had already established this distinc- 
tion) they took seven, by which is generally understood three pairs to 
continue the race, and one male for sacrifice. They took seven days 
to enter the ark, and then " Jehovah shut Noah in." 

On the same day, namely, the seventeenth day of the second month 
of the six hundredth year of Noah's life, the flood began. Its physi- 
cal causes are described simply as phenomena, in figurative language : 
" The fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows 
of heaven were opened." The narrative is vivid and forcible, though 
entirely wanting in that sort of description which the modern historian 
or poet would have employed to depict the scene. We see nothing 
of the death struggle of the doomed people ; we hear nothing of their 
cries of despair; we are not called upon to witness the frantic agony 
of husband and wife, of parent and child, as they fled in vain before 
the rising waters. Nor is a word said of the sadness of the one 
righteous man, who, safe himself, looked upon the destruction which 
he could not avert. But one impression is left upon the mind with 
peculiar vividness, from the very simplicity of the narrative, and it is 
that of utter desolation. "All flesh died that moved upon the earth, 
both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing 
that creepeth upon the earth, and every man ; * * * * they 
were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and 
they that were with him in the ark." The vast expanse of water 
appeared unbroken, save by that floating home of all that were left 
alive, for 150 days, or five months. 

Whether the flood was universal or partial has given rise to much 
controversy ; but there can be no doubt that it was universal, so Un- 
as man was concerned : we mean that it extended to all the then 
known world. The truth of the biblical narrative is confirmed by 
the numerous traditions of other nations, which have preserved the 
memory of a great and destructive flood, from which but a small part 



TIMES OF NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 39 



of mankind escaped. They seem to point back to a common centre, 
whence they were carried by the different families of man as they 
wandered east and west. 

Meanwhile God remembered Noah and those that were with him 
in the ark. At the end of the fifth month the waters were abated, 
and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the six hundredth 
year of Noah's life, the ark was left by the falling waters upon the 
mountains of Ararat. It required two months still to uncover the 
tops of the mountains, which were not visible until the first day of 
the tenth month. Noah waited forty days longer, and then, being 
anxious to know if the 
waters had entirely gone 
down, sent forth from 
the ark a raven, which 
flew about from moun- 
tain top to mountain 
top, but did not return 
to the ark. On the 
eighteenth day, he sent 
forth a dove, but the 
timid bird could find 
no resting place, and 
after flying about for 
some time, returned to 
the ark. By this Noah 
knew that the waters 
still covered the face 
of the earth. On the 
twenty-fifth day he 
again sent forth the 
dove, which soon re- 
turned to him with an olive leaf in her bill, the sign that even the 
low trees were uncovered, and the type for after ages of peace and 
rest. Seven days later still, on the second day of the twelfth month, 
the dove was again sent out, but this time she did not return ; thus 
proving that the waters had entirely subsided. These periods of 
seven days clearly point to the division of time into weeks. 

On the first day of the six hundredth and first year of his age, Noah 
removed the covering of the ark, and beheld the newly-uncovered 
earth. On the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth 
being dry, Noah, at the command of God, went forth out of the ark 




THE DOVE. 



40 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



with all his family and the animals that had been saved with him. 
Grateful for his preservation, his first act was to build an altar, and 
offer a sacrifice of every clean beast and bird. This act of piety 
pleased God, and he informed Noah that he would not again curse 
the earth because of its wickedness, as he had done, nor destroy it, 
but would forbear with man's innate tendency to evil, and continue 
the existing course of nature until the appointed end of the world. 
He repeated to Noah and his sons the blessing pronounced on Adam 
and Eve, that they should " be fruitful and multiply and replenish 
the earth," and that the inferior creatures should be subject to them. 
To this he added the use of animals for food. But the eating their 
blood was forbidden, because the blood is the life ; and, lest the need- 
ful shedding of their blood should lead to deeds of blood, a new law 
was enacted against murder. The horror of the crime was clearly 

stated on the two grounds of the 
common brotherhood of man, which 
makes every murder a fratricide, and 
of the creation of man in God's image. 
The first murderer had been driven 
out as a vagabond and fugitive ; but 
his life was sacred. Now, however, 
the penalty was changed, and the law 
laid down — "He that sheddeth man's 
blood, by man shall his blood be 
shed." This law amounts to giving 
the civil magistrate the " power of 
the sword ;" and hence we may con- 
sider three new precepts to have been given to Noah, in addition to 
the laws of the Sabbath and of marriage, which were revealed to 
Adam — namely, the abstinence from blood, the prohibition of murder, 
and the recognition of the civil authority. 

In addition to these promises and precepts, God made with Noah a 
Covenant — that is, one of these agreements by which he had con- 
descended again and again to bind himself toward man ; not more 
sacred with him than a simple promise, but more satisfying to the 
weakness of our faith. Of these covenants, that made with Noah on 
behalf of his descendants is the first; and it may be called the 
Covenant of GooVs forbearance, under which man lives to the end of 
time. It repeated the promise that the world should not be again de- 
stroyed by a flood ; and it was ratified by the beautiful sign of the 
rainbow in the cloud, a natural phenomenon suited to the natural laws 




THE BOW OF PROMISE. 



TIMES OF NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 41 

of whose permanence it was the token. It is important for ns not to 
suffer our relations to Adam as our first father, or to Abraham as the 
father of the faithful, to overshadow our part in God's covenant with 
Noah as the ancestor of the existing human race. 

Noah soon gave proof that the new race was a fallen one. He 
began his new life as an husbandman in Armenia, a land which is 
still most favorable for the vine, where he planted a vineyard. 
Having converted the fruit of his vineyard into wine, he made him- 
self drunk, and, while thus deprived of reason, exposed himself 
shamefully in his tent, in the presence of his sons. The conduct of 
those sons shows the differences of character which have severed even 
the families chosen by God in every age. Ham, instead of endeavor- 
ing to hide his father's shame, went and told his brethren of it, and 
they promptly went into the tent and concealed it even from their 
own eyes. When Noah recovered his senses, he gave utterance to his 
feelings respecting the conduct of his sons, in words which are un- 
questionably prophetic of the destinies of the three races that descended 
from them. For in the primitive state of society the government 
was strictly patriarchal. The patriarch — that is the head of the race 
for the time being — had over his children and theirs, the full power 
of the later king ; he was their priest; and thus we have seen Noah 
offering sacrifices ; and, among those who preserved the true religion^ 
he was a prophet also. With such authority, then, did Noah pro- 
nounce on his undutiful son the curse that, in the person of one of his 
own children, he should be a slave to his brother : 

" Cursed be Canaan (the youngest son of Ham) : 
A slave of slaves shall he be to his brethren ;" 

while to Shem and Japheth he gave the respective blessings already 
symbolized by their names, Shem (the name, chosen above all others) 
and Japheth [enlargement), — to the former that Jehovah should be his 
God in some special sense; to the latter that he should be "en- 
larged" with worldly power, and should ultimately share the 
blessings of Shem. 

" Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem, 
And let Canaan be their slave ; 
May God enlarge Japheth, 
And let him dwell in the tents of Shem, 
And let Canaan be their slave." 

The subsequent history of Canaan shows in the plainest man nor 
the fulfilment of the curse. Upon the capture of his land by Israel he 
became the servant of Shem ; when Tyre fell before the arms of 



42 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

A lexander, and the Roman eagles triumphed over Carthage, he became 
the slave of Japheth. 

The blessing on Shem was fulfilled in the history of the Chosen 
Race from whom sprang the Messiah ; and the blessing on Japheth is 
illustrated by every age of the history of the great European nations 
whose ancestor he was. 

Noah lived to be a very old man, and died three hun- 

B C j j 

2q '-.qqo dred and fifty years after the flood, at the age of nine 
hundred and fifty, just halfway, according to the common 
chronology, between the Creation and the Christian Era. He survived 
the fifth and eighth of his descendants, Peleg and Reu ; he was for 
128 years contemporary with Terah, the father of Abraham; 
and died only two years before the birth of Abraham himself 
(a. m. 2006 — b. c. 1998). Looking backward, we find that he was 
born only 126 years after the death of Adam, and fourteen years 
after that of Seth. He was contemporary with Enos for 84 years, 
and with the remaining six antediluvian patriarchs (except Enoch) 
for centuries. Thus the reader will see how easy it was for the 
traditions of primeval history to be handed down from Adam to 
Noah, and from Noah to Abraham, and we might add from Abraham 
to Moses. 



THE PARTITION OF THE NATIONS. 43 




CHAPTER III. 

THE PARTITION OF THE NATIONS — FROM THE DELUGE TO THE BIRTH OF 

ABRAHAM. 
[a. m. 1656-2008. b. c. 2348-1996.] 

HE history of Noah's children divides itself into two branches; 

the general peopling of the earth by the descendants of his 

three sons, and the particular line of the chosen family. The 

former subject is briefly dismissed, but with notices full of 

interest ; and the latter is pursued down to Abraham, on 

whose migration to Canaan we again come in contact with the other 

races of men. The interval is a period, in round numbers, of 400 years. 

Two facts are prominent in the outline of the population 

. ' ' of the world, which is given in Genesis x. : — the tripartite 

division of the nations into the descendants of Japheth, 

Shem, and Ham ; and the original centre of all these races in the 

mountains of Armenia, where Noah came forth from the ark. That 

the record is meant to include all the peoples of the known world, is 

clear from the concluding words : " These are the families of the sons 

, of Noah, after their generations, in their nations, and by these were the 

nations divided in the earth after the flood." Now if we turn to the 

results of ethnological science, remembering that the science itself is 

quite recent, we must be struck with the points of agreement. 

First, as to the locality. The highlands of Armenia are admirably 
adapted to be the central spot whence the streams of population should 
pour forth on all sides of the world. They are equidistant from the 
Caspian and Euxine seas in the north, and from the Mediterranean 
and the Persian Gulf in the south. Around those seas the earliest 
settlements of civilized man were made, and they became the high 
roads of commerce and colonization. Armenia had communication 
with them by means of the rivers which rise in its central district, the 
Euphrates opening the path to Syria and the Mediterranean in one 
direction, as well as to the Persian Gulf in the other ; the Tigris lead- 
ing down to Assyria and Susiana ; the Araxes and Cyrus descending 
to the Caspian, the latter also furnishing ready access to the Euxine 
by the commercial route which connected its valley with that of the 
Phasis. The researches of science point to that region as the primitive 



44 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

t of these race?. Physiologists are now generally agreed on the 
common origin of the human race, and they find its noblest tvpe in 
the regions south of the Caucasus. Again, the safest guide to the 
affinities of nations is found in the comparative study of their lan- 
guages : and two great families of these have been clearly established, 
with a general correspondence to the races of Japheth and of She in, 
while the little that is known of the original languages of Palestine, 
Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya, is consistent with their forming a third 
family, corresponding to the race of Ham. 

The identification of the names mentioned in Genesis x. is attended 
with considerable difficulties. First, there is a question respecting the 
extent of the world over which these nations must be looked for : but 
as the account is one of the first peopling of the earth after the flood, 
the space to which it refers must be comparatively small ; and it 
belongs to later history to trace the further diffusion ^>f the nations. 
Again, some names, which would be well known in their native or 
classical forms, seem unfamiliar to us in the Hebrew. The same 
names, too, appear among different races, as will be seen by compar- 
ing the Hamite and Shemite peoples of Arabia with each other and 
with the descendants of Abraham by Keturah (the Ketura'ite Arabs). 
Such cases are satisfactorily explained by assuming that, when a people 
of one race settled in a country previously occupied by auother, either 
expelling or subduing or coalescing with the former inhabitants, the new 
race are called by the already established geographical name of the 
older, just as the English received the name of Britons, and the mixed 
races of the three European peninsulas are called Spaniards, Italians, 
and Greeks. 

The chief stumbling-block, however, is found in the mixture of in- 
dividual with national names. Now this is really of little conse- 
quence, since, with a few exceptions, as that of Ximrod, the purpose 
is clearly to exhibit the affinities of nations. The record is ethnogra- 
phical rather than genealogical. This is clear from the plural forms 
of some of the names (for example, all the descendants of Jlizraim), 
and from the ethnic form of others, as those of the children of Canaan, 
nearly all of which are simply geographical. The genealogical form 
is preserved in the first generation after the sons ofXoah, and is then 
virtually abandoned for a mere list of the nations descended from each 
of these progenitors. But in the line of the patriarchs from Shem to 
Abraham the genealogical form is strictly preserved, since the object is 
to trace a pjcrsonal descent. 

On the other hand, the identification is greatly aided, first, by the 



THE PARTITION OF THE NATIONS. 45 

geographical explanations given in the record itself; next, by the well- 
known names occuring among the less known ; while on these latter 
much light is thrown by subsequent allusions in the prophetical as 
well as the historical books of the Old Testament. 

It is interesting to follow the dispersion of the families descended 
from Noah, and note the manner in which they established themselves 
in the various parts of the earth. 

The territories of the descendants of Japheth lay chiefly on the 
coasts of the Mediterranean, in Europe and Asia Minor, " the isles of 
the Gentiles ;" but they also reached across Armenia, and along the 
northeastern edge of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, over Media and 
Persia. The race spread westward and northward over Europe, and 
at the other end as far as India, embracing the great Indo-European 
family of languages. Thus was the wide diffusion of his race indicated 
by his prophetic name Japheth (enlarged). 

The race of Shem occupied the southwestern corner of 
' " Asia, including the peninsula of Arabia. Of his five sons, 
Arphaxad is the progenitor both of the Hebrews and of 
the Arabs, and other kindred tribes, whose origin is recorded in the 
book of Genesis. North of them were the children of Aram (which 
signifies high), in the highlands of Syria and Mesopotamia. Asshur 
evidently represents Assyria ; and the eastern and western extremities 
were occupied by the well-known nations of the Elymseans (children 
of Elam) on the southeastern margin of the valley of the Tigris, and 
the Lydians (children of Lud) in Asia Minor. • 

The race of Ham (the swarthy, according to the most probable ety- 
mology) presents very difficult, but interesting problems. Their chief 
seat was in Africa, but they are also found mingling with the Semitic 
races on the shores of Arabia, and on the Tigris and Euphrates, while 
on the north they extended into Palestine (the land of the Philistines), 
Asia Minor, and the larger islands, as Crete and Cyprus. In Africa, 
Mizraim is most certainly identified with Egypt ; Cush with Ethiopia, 
above Egypt ; and Phut probably with the inland peoples to the west. 
Among the sons of Mizraim, the Lubim correspond to Libya; and 
those of Cush represent tribes which crossed the Red Sea, and spread 
along the southern and eastern shores of Arabia, up the Persian Gulf 
and the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. 

The dispersion of these nations to their several abodes did not take 
place, however, until some time after the deluge. It was not until 
the days of Peleg, the fifth in descent from Noah, that the division of 
the earth was made. Men never leave their accustomed abodes in 




46 



THE PARTITION OF THE NATIONS. 4? 

masses, except upon compulsion, or under the pressure of some strono- 
necessity. This dispersion was the work of God himself, and was 
adopted for the purpose of defeating a daring scheme by which men 
hoped to make themselves independent of him. " The whole earth 
was as yet of one language and of one speech," when " as they jour- 
neyed eastward they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they 
dwelt there." That Shinar means Babylonia, admits of no doubt ; 
but who were the people that journeyed eastward to it? Were they 
one of the three races of Noah's sons, and if so, which ? Or was it a 
migration of the great body of Noah's offspring from the rugged high- 
lands of Armenia, in search of a better soil and climate ? The latter 
seems the more probable, though there is a difficulty about bringing 
the Japhetic race into this region. They discovered the art of making 
brick from the argillaceous soil, and cementing it with the mineral 
bitumen or asphalt. Soon that idea sprung up in their minds, which 
has been the dream of man in every age — a universal empire, with a 
mighty city for its capital. In the blindness of their pride, they fancied 
that, when thus banded together, they might defy God himself and 
defeat his wise design of dispersing them over the earth. " Come," 
said they, " let us build us a city, and a citadel with its top (reaching) 
to heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad 
upon the face of the whole earth." God saw the danger of their 
scheme, and willed that no such power should be ever established. 
The attempt has since been made thrice on that very spot, by Nebu- 
chadnezzar, Cyrus, and Alexander. It has been repeated in the em- 
pire of the Romans, and in its attempted revival by Charlemagne and 
Napoleon; but in each case God has come down to confound the 
scheme. 

The means by which the design was defeated was a " Confusion of 
Speech " among the builders caused by the direct power of God, " that 
they might not understand one another's speech." This confusion of 
speech has generally been itself confounded with the origin of the 
different languages of men. The Scripture narrative simply says that 
the confusion was such as to make them leave off working together, 
and that then " Jehovah scattered them abroad from thence upon the 
face of all the earth : and they left off to build the city." We are not 
told in what the confusion consisted, nor what elements the different 
peoples carried away with them in their dispersion. Certainly it 
seems to be implied that some of the most striking differences which 
mark the various families of languages were then suddenly caused by 
God's immediate act, and that the builders separated because they 



48 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

could no longer understand each other; but it does not follow that 
languages were then formed as they exist now, and the comparative 
grammarian may trace up the beautiful laws which show the verv 
opposite of confusion, without fearing to contradict the true sense of 
the Scripture narrative. 

From the confusion (Babel) of tongues, the city received the name 
of Babel, and is renowned under the Greek form of Babylon. It is 
supposed that the tower was afterward completed. Similar edifices 
were used in other cities of the region as citadels, temples, and 
observatories, and the ruins at Borsippa, called Birs- Ximrud (Xim- 
rod's Mound), may be taken as a type of such structures. 

The early importance of Babylonia and Assyria is testi- 
' ' fied by the notice of their capitals, and in the account of 
the division of the nations, Ximrod, the son of Cush, 
founded the first great military despotism on record. The " mighty 
hunter n made men his game; for the phrase, in its connection, seems 
a great symbol of violence and rapine. His capital was Babylon, but 
he founded also three other cities in the plain of Shinar, namely, 
Erech, Accad, and Calneh. Thence he extended his empire north- 
ward along the course of the Tigris over Assyria, where he founded 
a second group of capitals, jSfineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen. 
The Assyrians were Shemites ; and accordingly we see here the race 
of Ham subduing that of Shem, but only for a time, for the history 
of these monarchies fulfilled the prophecy of Xoah, that Ham should 
be subject to both his brothers. Still more strikingly was this true 
of the posterity of Canaan (the youngest son of Ham), who settled 
in Palestine and became the great enemies of the chosen race. 

Our present information does not permit us to identify Ximrod 
with any personage known to us either from inscriptions or from 
classical writers. Xinus and Belus are representative titles rather 
than personal names, ancT are but equivalent terms for " the lord/' 
who was regarded as the founder of the empires of Xineveh and 
Babvlon. AVe have no reason on this account to doubt the personal 
existence of Nimrod, for the events with which he is connected fall 
within the shadows of a remote antiquity. His name still survives 
in tradition, and to him the modern Arabs ascribe all the great works of 
ancient times, such as the Birs-Ximrud near Babylon, Tel Ximrud near 
Baghdad, the dam of Suhr el Ximrud across the Tigris below Mosul, 
and the well-known mound of Ximrud in the same neighborhood. 



HISTORY AND CALL OF ABRAM. 49 



BOOK II. 

FROM THE BIRTH OF ABRAHAM TO THE DEATH OF JOSEPH, OE THE 
PROBATION OF THE CHOSEN FAMILY. 

[A. m. 2008 — 2369. b. c. 1996 — 1635.] 




CHAPTER IV. 

HISTORY AND CALL OF ABRAM TO HIS NINETY-NINTH YEAR, AND THE CHAN&E OP 

HIS NAME. 
[A. m. 2008-2106. b. c. 1996-1898.] 

HE world having relapsed into idolatry and wickedness, as is 
evidenced by the impious attempt to build the Tower of Babel, 
it pleased God to select from the descendants of Noah a single 
family through which to transmit the blessings he had prom- 
ised to man, from which the Seed of the Woman, promised to 
Eve, should spring, and which should in the meanwhile preserve his 
worship in its purity. For the purpose of raising up this family he 
made choice of a patriarch who was born only two years 

1An ' ' after the death of Noah. His name was Abram, and 
lyyo— lbyo. m 

he was the son of Terah, who was the ninth of the patri 
archs from Shem, and the nineteenth from Adam (inclusive). His 
genealogy, which the subsequent history requires most clearly to be 
understood, is exhibited in the table which follows this paragraph. 
It is the more important to include the whole family of Terah in our 
view, as the call of God came to Abram while he was still living in 
the house of his father, to whose whole family, therefore, the call may 
be considered as in some sense addressed, and by all of whom it was 
in some degree obeyed. 

At the time of this call, we are informed by Joshua, Terah and his 
family were idolaters. "We are told in Genesis that at the age of 
seventy (b. c. 2056) Terah begat three sons, Abram, Nahor, and 
Haran. They are thus named in the order of their subsequent 
dignity and importance, though it can hardly be doubted that Haran 
was the eldest of the three, since both Abram and Nahor married his 
daughters. Abram appears to have been the youngest of the three, 
since he was born sixty years after the date just given ; for he was 
4 



50 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



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HISTORY AND CALL OF ABRAM. 51 

seventy-five years old when his father died in Haran at the age of 
two hundred and five. His name Ab-ram (father of elevation, i. e. 
exalted father) was prophetic of his calling to be the ancestor of a 
race chosen for an exalted destiny, but it was afterward changed into 
the more significant name of Ab-eaham (father of a multitude). 

Terah and his family resided in the ancient city of " Ur of the 
Chaldees." Haran, his eldest son, was dead, and Lot, the son of 
Haran, was the heir to the family honors and possessions. Ur has 
been identified by the most ancient traditions with the city of Orfah, 
in the highlands of Mesopotamia (Aram), which unite the tableland 
of Armenia to the Valley of the Euphrates (Padan-Aram). In later 
ages it was called Edessa, and was celebrated as the Capital of Agbara 
or Acbarus, who was said to have received the letter and portrait of 
our Saviour. It was while residing here that Abram received the 
first call from God. This is expressly asserted by St. Stephen, in his 
speech before the Sanhedrim, a speech which is of the highest author- 
ity, if only for the profound Scriptural learning of the speaker. 

Quitting Ur, the chosen family moved southward, and took up 
their abode at Haran, more properly called, in the New Testament, 
Charran, east of the Euphrates, " the flood " which divided the old 
home of the family from the new land of promise. Here Terah died, 
after a residence of several years, and here Nahor, to whom belonged 
the right of a first choice, decided to settle. 

In the meantime, probably immediately upon his father's death, 
Abram was again called by God. " Get thee out of thy country, and 
from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I 
will show thee : and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will 
bless thee, and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a blessing. 
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth 
thee ; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." The 
last words involve the crowning blessing of the Old Covenant, the 
Promise of the Messiah, and that to the Gentiles, " all families of the 
earth." 

The command of God was simply to go out to a country to which 
he would lead the patriarch ; but Abram did not hesitate. He was 
full of faith in God, and at once set out, accompanied by Sarai, his 
wife, and his nephew Lot. Leaving Mesopotamia, he crossed the 
Euphrates, which separated him entirely from his former home. 
Hence he was called by the Canaanites the " Hebrew," or the man 
who had crossed the river — the emigrant from Mesopotamia. He 
passed through the Syrian desert, and there is a tradition that he 



52 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



tarried at Damascus for a while, a tradition which has an air of 
probability attached to it, since Eliezer, the steward of his house, was 
a native of that city. Journeying thence, he crossed the Jordan, 
entered the Promised Land, and passed into the Valley of Shechem 
or Sichem, where he halted. At this, his first resting place in the 
Holy Land, God appeared to him again, and gave him the second of 
his promises, that his seed should possess the land ; and here Abram 
built an altar to the Lord, the first of the series of memorials which 
the patriarchs erected wherever thev pitched their tents. 




ABRAHAM'S EXCAMPXEXT. 

It is not certain whether the spot was then marked by the city 
which was afterward called Shechem from the Amorite Shechem, the 
contemporary of Jacob, and which is now known as Kdbhts ; but it i> 
expressly stated that "the Canaanite was then (/. e. already) in the 
land," having probably driven out an earlier race. Abram was 
aware that these people would not view with complacency his settle- 
ment in such a favored spot with his tents and his herds, and as he 
was not strong enough to resist an attack, he determined to seek a 
less exposed location, and withdrew southward to a place which lay 



HISTORY AND CALL OF ABRAM. 53 

i 

afterward on the northern border of the kingdom of Judah, on the 
heights which skirt the Jordan, between Bethel (then called Luzj 
on the west, and Ai on the east, where he built another altar, 
and called on the name of Jehovah. This was his second halting- 
place in the Holy Land. 

As he now occupied a mountainous region, he was safe 
from the Canaanites who dwelt in the plains below, but 
this advantage was counterbalanced by the sterility of the country, 
which offered only meagre grazing for his cattle. He continued to 
move to the southward, therefore, until a famine forced him to enter 
Egypt. 

The mighty monarchy of the Pharaohs had long been estab- 
lished in this country, and the king or Pharaoh was absolute master 
of the lives and persons of his subjects. Knowing this, and seeing 
that Sarai was a woman of unusual beauty, Abram feared that the 
despot would take her from him and kill him in order to get him out 
of the way ; and in this crisis his faith failed him, and he stooped to 
that mean form of deceit, which is true in word, but false in fact. 
He caused Sarai to pass for his sister, a term used in Hebrew, as in 
many other languages, for a niece, which she really was. The king 
was struck with the beauty of Sarai, whom he supposed to be an 
unmarried woman, and he took her to his harem, and heaped honors 
and riches upon Abram. God punished the tyranny of Pharaoh 
with plagues upon himself and his household, and warned him of 
Sarai's true relation to Abram. The king, in alarm, restored her to 
Abram, and after sternly rebuking him for his deceit, sent him out 
of Egypt with all the cattle, silver, and gold, which he had acquired, 
for he was now very wealthy. Returning through the south, Abram 
went back to his old encampment on the hills, near Bethel, where he 
again established the worship of Jehovah. 

Quarrels, arising from their increasing possessions, now broke out 
between Abram and Lot. Abram's faith sustained him thoroughly 
in this emergency, and feeling sure that God would keep his promises 
to him, he called on Lot to take his choice of the country before 
them, and to separate from him in peace, as they could no longer live 
together in harmony. Their encampment looked westward on the 
rugged hills of Judaea, and eastward on the fertile plain of the Jordan 
about Sodom, " well watered everywhere, as the garden of the Lord, 
like the land of Egypt" he had only lately quitted. Even from that 
distance, through the clear air of Palestine, can be distinctly dis- 
covered the long and thick masses of vegetation which fringe the 



> 



GO 

►J 

C 

i— i 

w 

> 




54 



HISTORY AND CALL OF ABRAM. 55 

numerous streams that descend from the hills on either side to meet 
the central stream in its tropical depths. It was exactly the prospect 
to tempt a man who had no fixed purpose of his own, who had not 
like Abram obeyed a stern inward call of duty. So Lot left his 
uncle on the barren hills of Bethel, and chose all the precinct of the 
Jordan, and journeyed east. For his faith upon this occasion, Abram 
received his third blessing and promise from Jehovah, who bade him 
lift up his eyes and scan the whole land on every side, for it should 
be the possession of his seed, and they should be unnumbered as the 
dust of the earth. After this, the patriarch removed to the " Oaks of 
Manure," near Hebron, in the centre of the hills of the south, and 
there he built an altar. This was his third resting-place in the Holy 
Land, and Mamre became his usual abode. 

After separating from his uncle, Lot had pitched his tent in the 
plain of the Lower Jordan, in which stood the famous five " cities of 
the plain," Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela (after- 
wards called Zoar). Each of these cities had its own king, but for 
purposes of defence they formed a confederacy or league under the 
leadership of the King of Sodom. They were noted for their wicked- 
ness, which was so terrible and vile that " it is a shame even to 
speak" of it. They did not transgress in secret, but their wickedness 
was open. Lot beheld it with amazement and horror, and u his 
righteous soul was vexed with their filthy conversation." 

The confederacy of the five cities was tributary to a great empire, 
which had already been established in Western Asia under Chedorla- 
omer, King of Elam. In the thirteenth year of their subjection, 
Chedorlaomer marched against them with three allied kings, defeated 
them in a great battle, killed the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, drove 
the rest to the mountains, spoiled the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
and, among others, carried off Lot and all his goods. As soon as 
Abram heard of the capture of his nephew, he collected 318 of his 
followers and his Amorite allies, and pursued the four kings, who 
were returning to their own country. Overtaking them at the sources 
of the Jordan, and dividing his forces into two bands, he made a night 
attack upon them, routed them, and pursued them to Hobah, to the 
north of Damascus. He rescued Lot and recaptured all the spoil, but 
refused to receive any of it from the King of Sodom, who came out to 
meet him, on his triumphal return, at Shaveh, or the King's Dale. 

On his return occurred one of the most memorable prophetic inci- 
dents in Abram's career. He was met by Melchizedck, king of 
Salem, the priest of the " Most High God," who brought to him 



56 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

bread and wine and blessed him. in the name of the Most High God, 
and Abram gave him tithes of all the spoil. There is something sur- 
prising and mysterious in the first appearance of Melchizedek, and in 
the subsequent references to him. Bearing a title which Jews in after 
ages would recognize as designating their own sovereign, bearing gifts 
which recall to Christians the Lord's Supper, this Canaanite crosses 
for a moment the path of Abram, and is unhesitatingly recognized as 
a person of higher spiritual rank than the friend of God. Disappear- 
ing as suddenly as he came in, he is lost to the sacred writings for a 
thousand years ; and then a few emphatic words for another moment 
bring him into sight as a type of the coming Lord of David. Once 
more, after another thousand years, the Hebrew Christians are taught 
to see in him a proof that it was the consistent purpose of God to 
abolish the Levitical priesthood. These references to him have given 
rise to much speculation » That he was both a king and a priest is 
quite in accordance with the patriarchal state of society ; but his priest- 
hood seems to have a dignity above that of the ordinary head of a 
family, and implies a relic of the true worship outside of the chosen 
family, such as we find long after in the story of the prophet Balaam. 
The extraordinary reverence paid him by Abram, and apparently by 
the King of Sodom, completes all our positive knowledge concerning 
his person and office. 

Abram was now well advanced in years, and was a powerful 
prince, rich in cattle and gold and silver, and was feared and respected 
by the tribes in his vicinity. God had promised that he should be the 
father of a great nation. But as yet he was childless, and he was 
rapidly approaching that period of life when it would be impossible by 
human means for him to raise up a family. In this state of affairs, his 
faith began to waver, and it might have deserted him entirely had not 
it pleased Jehovah to appear to him again, and for the fourth time, in 
a vision, and to confirm the promises he had made by a covenant, the 
most solemn of all the engagements then known amongst men. 
Abram had no heir but his steward and slave, Eliezer of Damascus, 
and he began to believe that it was through Eliezer that God meant 
to fulfil his promises. But Jehovah now gave him a clearer and more 
solemn revelation of his great design. He promised Abram that his 
heir should not be his slave, but his own son which should be born to 
him ; and commanding him to look upon the heavens, bright with 
myriads of glittering stars, bade him count them if he could, for "So," 
s;aid Jehovah, "shall thy seed be." And Abram " believed in the 
Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness." This was the 



HISTORY AND CALL OF ABRAM. 57 

crisis of his religious life. With the moral submission of the will, 
which is the essence of faith, he trusted God for what was beyond the 
scope of his reason. 

Pleased by this display of faith, Jehovah ratified his promise by a 
new Covenant, in which Abram stood to God in the relation of the 
Father of the Faithful, just as Noah, in the Covenant made with him, 
stood for all his race. The forms in which this new covenant was 
made are minutely related ; and they seem to agree with the customs 
then observed in covenants between man and man. A victim (or 
more) was slain in sacrifice, and equally divided, and the parts being 
placed over against each other, the contracting parties passed down 
between them. The ceremony clearly signified the equality of the 
contract, its religious character, and the penalty due to its violation. 
Each part of the ceremony was observed in this case. Abram ar- 
ranged the sacrifice in the proper manner, and passing between them 
sajt down to watch them, and to keep away the hirds from the carcasses 
until it should please God to manifest his presence there. " And it 
came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold, 
a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those 
pieces," the fire indicating the presence of God. 

The promise thus ratified, was as specific as it was solemn. It 
included : — 

1. The bondage of the Hebrews in a strange land for four hundred 
years. 

2. Their delivery with increased riches, amidst God's judgments 
on their oppressors. 

3. Their return to the land of promise in the fourth generation, 
when the iniquity of its inhabitants should be full. 

The boundaries of their possessions in that land were strictly defined, 
" from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates," 
to which the kingdom of David and Solomon actually reached. The 
definition is made still clearer by the enumeration of the Canaanitish 
tribes that occupied the land, 

To wait patiently for the fulfilment of the promise, in 
spite of natural obstacles, was too much, if not for the 
faith of Abram, at least for that of Sarai. As she was herself barren 
and without hope of having children, she gave to her husband her 
handmaid Hagar, an Egyptian, as his concubine, and by her Abram 
became the father of a son. The good fortune of Hagar so elated her 
that she became very insolent to her mistress, who, before the child 
was born, punished her so severely that the handmaid fled into the 



58 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

4 

wilderness of Kadesh, southeast of Abrani's abode. Here the "Angel 
of the Lord " appeared to her, and commanded her to return to her 
mistress. He told her God had heard her cry of distress, and that she 
should be delivered of a son, whose name she should call Ishmael 
(God shall hear) in token of God's mercy to her, and that this son 
should make her the mother of a numerous race. The angel also fore- 
told the character and destiny of the child in w r ords which to this day 
describe the Bedouin Arabs, who are descended from him. 

Ishmael was born when Abram was eighty-six years old (b. c. 1910), 
and fourteen years before the birth of the true heir. In Abrani's 
ninety-ninth year (b. c. 1898), Jehovah appeared to him by the name 
of El-Shaddai (God Almighty), and renewed the covenant with 
him in the new character of " father of many nations." In consequence 
of this, he changed his name from Ab-ram (exalted father) to Ab-raham 
(father of a multitude). The promise was now repeated to Abraham 
more clearly than ever, on behalf of his posterity. " I will be a God 
unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." As a sign of this inclusion of 
the children in the covenant, God enjoined the rite of circumcision, 
which became henceforth the condition of the covenant on the part of 
those with whom God made it. The uncircumcised was cut off from 
all its benefits, "he hath broken my covenant," while the stranger 
who received circumcision was admitted to them; and the head of the 
family was commanded to extend the rite to every male in his house- 
hold, servants as well as children. It was to be performed on children 
the eighth day after birth, and on slaves when they were purchased ; 
and all the family of Abraham were at once by this rite of circum- 
cision brought within the covenant. 

The dignity of Sarai, as the mother of the promised seed, 
b c 1898 

was marked by the change of her name to Sarah (princess), 

and it was declared that she should "become nations; and kings of 
the people should be of her." Her son was to be named Isaac 
(laughter), from the utterance of his father's feelings on the announce- 
ment. With him and his seed the covenant was to be continued in 
the new character of an " everlasting covenant," thus marking the dis- 
tinction between its eternal and temporal blessings. The latter bless- 
ings were assured to Ishmael, in answer to Abraham's earnest prayer ; 
but the covenant was " established with Isaac." Ishmael's share in 
the temporal promise was confirmed by his circumcision : and the rite 
is still observed by the Arabs and other Semitic races. 



ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 59 




CHAPTER V. 

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC — FROM THE CHANGE OP ABRAHAM'S NAME TO HIS 

DEATH. 

[a. m. 2107-2182. b. c. 1897-1822.] 

BBA.HAM, from the time when by this new name he received 
H~ the full divine revelation and covenant, is presented to us in 
V \ a higher character than before. The more open and familiar 
j<^? intercourse which he enjoys with Jehovah marks him pecu- 
liarly as "the friend of God." Of this we have an example 
in Genesis xviii. As Abraham sat at his tent door, under the oak 
of Mamre, he became aware of the presence of " three men" for 

such they seemed to him ; and the same language is 
b c 1897 • -i 

continually employed for the appearances of celestial 

beings in human form. 

Afterward the chief speaker is denoted, first by the mere pronoun, 
which is often used when God is meant, and then by the name of 
Jehovah. Doubtless he Avas the "Angel Jehovah," the " Word of 
God," through whom God spake to the fathers, and who, when 
dwelling upon earth in the actual incarnation which such appearances 
prefigured, declared, " Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day : 
and he saw it, and was glad." It is simplest to regard the other two 
as attendant angels ; and it appears, from the sequel, that while the 
chief of the three (Jehovah himself) remained behind in converse 
with Abraham, and then "went his way" to execute judgment upon 
Sodom, the other two were sent forward to rescue Lot. 

Abraham offered to the "three men" that hospitality which is 
commemorated in the apostolic precept : — " Be not forgetful to enter- 
tain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." 
He soon learnt the dignity of his visitors, when they inquired after 
Sarah, and rebuked her incredulity by repeating the promise that she 
should bear Abraham a son, and fixing the time for its fulfilment 
They then departed, with their faces toward Sodom ; and as Abraham 
brought them on the way, lie was favored — in consideration of his 
character as the head of the chosen family, to whom he was to teach 
God's righteous ways — with a revelation of the judgment coining 
upon Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. Thus was the truth 



60 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

revealed to the believing ehildreii of Abraham in every age, that 
God does execute judgment upon sinners, even in this life. But the 
patriarch's faith grasped at another truth, the privilege of intercession 
for such sinners. 

Then follows that wondrous pleading, in which he who was " but 
dust and ashes," taking on himself to speak with God, obtained the 
pardon of the guilty cities, if but fifty, then if forty-five, and so on 
down to only ten, righteous men were found in them, and might have 
prevailed if he had continued to plead, for the sake of the one really 
there ; for such seems the necessary complement of this great lesson 
that " men ought always to pray, and not to faint." 

Meanwhile the two angels went on their mission to Sodom, whose 
people gave them a reception which filled up the measure of their 
sins. Even the sons-in-law of Lot despised their warning ; and Lot 
himself was reluctantly dragged, with his wife and two daughters, 
from the devoted city. Even then, he could not quite tear himself 
from the scene where his worldly prosperity had been purchased by 
constant vexation of spirit, and he pleaded that one of the five cities 
might be preserved as his abode, because it was but a little one, 
whence the city, before named Bela, was called Zoar, that is, little. 
The sun was risen when Lot entered Zoar, and the people of Sodom 
and Gomorrah, with the two smaller cities of Admali and Zeboiim, 
which shared their fate, had begun another day of wanton revelry, 
when the heavens were overcast, and " Jehovah rained down upon 
them brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven ; and lie over- 
threw those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the 
cities, and that which grew upon the ground." 

The plain in which the cities stood, hitherto fruitful "as the garden 
of Jehovah/' became henceforth a scene of perfect desolation. Our 
Liord himself, and*the apostles Peter and Jude, have clearly taught 
the lasting lesson which is involved in the judgment; that it is a 
type of the final destruction by fire of a world which will have 
reached a wickedness like that of Sodom and Gomorrah. A more 
special warning to those who, when once separated from an ungodly 
world, desire to turn back, is enforced by the fate of Lot's wife, who, 
when she looked back from behind him, became a pillar of salt. 
Lot himself, though saved from Sodom, fell, like Noah after the 
deluge, into vile intoxication, of which his own daughter took advan- 
tage to indulge the incestuous passion, from which sprang the races 
of Moab and Amman. 

After a long residence at Mamre, Abraham once more set forth 



ABRAHAM AND ISAAC 



61 




A PILLAR OF SALT. 



upon his wanderings, turning toward " the south country, and 
dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar." Here 
he and his descendants dwelt for a long time at Beersheba, at the 
south-western extremity of the maritime plain, upon the borders of 
the desert. This was Abraham's fourth resting-place in the Holy 
Land. It continued till the latest times to be the southern boundary 
of the Holy Land, so that from Dan to Beersheba became the estab- 
lished formula to indicate the whole country. In this district the 
Philistines had already begun to form settlements, and a warlike 
king of this race, whose hereditary name was ABIMELECH (Father- 
King), reigned in the valley of Gerar. Here the deceit which 



62 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



Abraham had put upon Pharaoh, by calling Sarah his sister, was 
acted again, and with the like result. The repeated occurrence of 
such an event, which will meet us again in the history of Isaac, can 
surprise no one acquainted with Oriental manners ; but it would have 
been indeed surprising if the author of any but a genuine narrative 
had exposed himself to a charge so obvious as that which has been 
founded on its repetition. The independent truth of each story is 
confirmed by the natural touches of variety; such as, in the case 
before us, Abimelech's keen but gentle satire in recommending Sarah 
to buy a veil with the thousand pieces of silver which he gave to her 
husband. We may also observe the traces of the knowledge of the 
true God among Abimelech and his servants. 

A dispute subsequently arose between Abraham and Abimelech 

respecting a well in the neigh- 
borhood, marking " the impor- 
tance which, in the migratory 
land of the East, was and is 
always attached to the posses- 
sion of water." This dispute 
led to a treaty between Abra- 
ham and Abimelech, which 
gave to the well the name of 
" Beer-sheba," or the well of the 
oath, " because there they sware 
both of them." Here also 
u Abraham planted a grove, 
and called on the name of Jehovah, the everlasting God;" in oppo- 
sition doubtless to the deified heroes of the surrounding heathen. 

It was during Abraham's abode at Beersheba that his hopes were 
crowned by the birth of his son Isaac, when he himself was a hun- 
dred years old. At the " great feast " made in celebration of the wean- 
ing, " Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born 
unto Abraham, mocking," and urged Abraham to cast out him and 
his mother. The patriarch, comforted by God's renewed promise that 
of Ishmael he would make a nation, sent them both away, and they 
departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. Here the 
water being spent in the bottle, Hagar cast her son under one of the 
desert shrubs, and went away a little distance, " for she said, Let me 
not see the death of the child," and wept. "And God heard the voice 
of the lad, and the angel of the Lord called to Hagar out of heaven," 
renewed the promise already thrice given, "I will make him a great 
nation," and " opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water." Thus 




HAGAR AND ISJOIAEL. 



ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 63 

miraculously saved from perishing by thirst, "God was with the lad; 
and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness ; and became an archer." It 
is doubtful whether the wanderers halted by the well, or at once 
continued their way to " the wilderness of Paran," where he dwelt, 
and where " his mother took him a wife out- of the land of Egypt." 

Henceforward the story of Abraham is intertwined with that of 
Isaac, of whom it was said, " In Isaac shall thy seed be called." The 
plan of the sacred narrative passes over every detail that does not bear 
upon the history of the covenant itself, and carries us on to a period 
when Isaac had reached the age of intelligence. A tradition preserved 
by Josephus makes Isaac twenty-five years old at the time of the 
crowning trial of Abraham's faith ; and we certainly gather from the 
Scripture narrative that he was an intelligent and willing party to the 
sacrifice of his life at the command of God. It is impossible to re- 
peat this story, the most perfect specimen of simple and pathetic nar- 
rative, in any other words than those of the sacred writer. " And it 
came to pass, after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and 
said unto him, Abraham : and he said, Behold, here I am. And he 
said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and 
get thee into the land of Moriah ; and offer him* there for a burnt- 

* This sacrifice took place in "one of the mountains " in the land of Moriah 
(Gen. xxii. 2). What the name of the mountain was we are not told ; but it was 
a conspicuous one, visible from "afar off" (ver. 4). Nor does the narrative 
afford any data for ascertaining its position. A tradition which first appears in a 
definite shape in Josephus, and is now almost universally accepted, asserts 
that the " Mount Moriah 1 ' in 2 Chron. iii. 1, the eminence in Jerusalem on which 
Solomon built his temple, was the very spot of the sacrifice of Isaac. But the 
single occurrence of the name in this one passage of Chronicles is surely not 
enough to establish a coincidence, which, if we consider.it, is little short of mira- 
culous. Except in the case of Salem, and that is by no means ascertained— the 
name of Abraham does not appear once in connection with Jerusalem or the later 
royal or ecclesiastical glories of Israel. Moreover, Jerusalem is incompatible 
with the circumstances of the narrative of Genesis xxii. To name only two 
instances.— (1), The Temple mount cannot be spoken of as a conspicuous emi- 
nence. It is not visible till the traveller is close upon it at the southern edge of the 
valley of Hinnom, from whence he looks down upon it as on a lower eminence. 
(2), If Salem was Jerusalem, then the trial of Abraham's faith instead of taking 
place in the lonely and desolate spot implied by the narrative, where not even fire 
was to be obtained, and where no help but that of the Almighty was nigh, actu- 
ally took place under the very walls of the city of Melchizedek. But, while there 
is no trace, except in the single passage quoted, of Moriah being attached to any 
part of Jerusalem-on the other hand, in the slightly different formofMoitEii 
(Gen. xii. 6), it did exist attached to the town and neighborhood of Shechom, the 
spot of Abraham's first residence in Palestine The sacrifice probably took place 
upon the lofty hill of Gerizim overlooking the town of Shechem, as the Samaritans 
have always asserted. 



04 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And 
Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took 
two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood 
for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which 
God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his 
eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young 
men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder 
and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood 
of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son ; and he took the 
fire in his hand, and a knife : and they went both of them together. 
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father : and 
he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the 
wood ; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering ? And Abraham 
said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering : 

so they went both of them together. 
And they came to the place which 
God had told him of; and Abraham 
built an altar there, and laid the 
wood in order ; and bound Isaac 
his son, and laid him on the altar 
upon the wood. And Abraham 
stretched forth his hand, and took 
the knife to slay his son. And the 
angel of the Lord called unto him 
abeaham and ISAAC. out of heaven, and said, Abraham, 

Abraham : and he said, Here am 
I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou 
anything unto him : for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou 
hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham 
lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, behind him a ram caught 
in a thicket by his horns ; and Abraham went and took the ram, and 
offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son. And Ab- 
raham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh : as it is said to this 
day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." 

As a reward for the unhesitating faith and obedience of the patri- 
arch, God renewed the covenant with him, in its special blessings 
to the children of Abraham, and in its full spiritual extension to all 
the families of the earth, and for the first time Jehovah confirmed his 
promise with an oath. 

The next event recorded in Abraham's life is the death 
of Sarah, at the age of 127, at Hebron ; so that Abraham 




66 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



must have returned from Beersheba to his old home. This led to an 
interesting transaction between the patriarch and the people of the land 
in which he was a sojourner. God had " given him none inheritance 
in the land, no not so much as to set his foot on/' He had used it to 
pitch his tent and feed his flocks on, but not a foot of it was actuallv 
his property. But now the sanctity of the sepulchre demanded that 
his burying-place should be his own ; and he makes a bargain with 
Ephron the Hittite, in the presence of all the people of the city, in the 
course of which he behaves, and is treated by them, like a generous 
and mighty prince. Courteously refusing both the use of their sepul- 
chres, and the offer of a place for his own as a gift, he buys for its 
full value of four hundred shekels' weight of silver, " current money 
with the merchant," the Cave of Machpelah (or the Double Cave), 

close to the oak of 
Harare, with the field 
in which it stood. 
Here he buried Sarah ; 
here he was buried by 
his sons Isaac and 
Ishmael ; there they 
buried Isaac and Re- 
bekah his wife, Jacob 
and his wife Leah, 
and perhaps Joseph. 
The sepulchre still 
kebekah and eliezer. exists under the 

Mosque of Hebron, 
and was first permitted to be seen by Europeans since the Crusades, 
when it was visited by the Prince of Wales in 1862. 

After the burial of Sarah, Abraham appears to have returned to 
Beersheba. His last care was for the marriage of his son Isaac to a 
wife of his own kindred, and not to one of the daughters of the 
Canaanites. His oldest servant undertook the journey to Haran, in 
Mesopotamia, where Xahor, the brother of Abraham, had settled, and 
a sign from God indicated the person he sought in Rebekah, the 
daughter of Bethuel, son of Xahor. The whole narrative is a vivid 
picture of pastoral life, and of the simple customs then used in making 
a marriage contract, not without characteristic touches of the tendency 
to avarice in the family of Bethuel, and particularly in his son Laban. 
The scene of Isaac's meeting with Rebekah seems to exhibit his char- 
acter as that of quiet pious contemplation. He was forty years old 




68 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

when he married, and his residence was by the well of Lahai-roi, in 
the extreme south of Palestine. 

It was not till twenty years later that Rebekah, whose barrenness 
was removed through the prayers of Isaac, bore twin sons, Esau [hairy) 
or Edom (the Red) and Jacob (the Sapplanter), whose future destiny 
was prophetically signified by the strange incidents which accompanied 
their birth. Their struggle in the womb portended the deadly ani- 
mosity of the two nations that were to spring from them ; and the 
grasp of the younger on the elder's heel betokened that craft in taking 
advantage of his brother which answered to his name. Their physical 
appearance was as different as their characters afterward proved : the 
ruddy and hairy Esau became a rough, wild hunter, the smooth Jacob 
a quiet denizen of the tent. These differences of character were fos- 
tered by the foolish partiality of their parents, the great curse of all 
family life : — " Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison : 
but Rebekah loved Jacob. " 

It was after the marriage of Isaac that Abraham formed 

b c 1822 • • 

a new union with Keturah, by whom he became the father 

of the Keturdite Arabs. Keturah seems to have been only a concu- 
bine, and her sons were sent away eastward, enriched with presents, 
as Ishmael had been during Abraham's life, lest the inheritance of 
Isaac should be disputed. To him Abraham gave all his great wealth, 
and died apparently at Beersheba " in a good old age, an old man, and 
full of years," his age being 175. His sons Isaac and Ishmael met at 
his funeral, and buried him in the Cave of Machpelah. Ishmael sur- 
vived him just fifty years ; and died at the age of 137. 



ISAAC AND JACOB 



69 



CHAPTER VI. 

ISAAC AND JACOB — FROM THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM TO THE DEATH OF ISAAC. 

[a. m. 2182-2288. b. c. 1822-1716.] 



p> FTEB, the death of Abraham, Isaac continued to dwell by the 
tf.Qu. well of Lahai-roi, blessed by God. During his sojourn here, 
v an event occurred which fixed the destinies of his sons. Esau, 
y^Cz returning from hunting in a famished state, saw Jacob pre- 
paring some red pottage of lentils, and quickly asked for 
" some of that red, red." His impatience was natural, for food is not 
readily procured in an Eastern tent, and takes time to prepare. 
Jacob seized the occa- 
sion to obtain Esau's 
birthright as the price 
of the meal; and Esau 
consented with a levity 
which is marked by 
the closing words of 
the narrative — " thus 
Esau despised his 
birthright." For this 
the Apostle calls him 
" a profane person, who 
for one morsel of food 
sold his birthright," 
and marks him as the 
pattern of those who 

sacrifice eternity for a moment's sensual enjoyment. The justice of 
this judgment appears from considering what the birthright was, 
which he sold at such a price. Esau was, by right of birth, the head 
of the family, its prophet, priest and king ; and no man can renounce 
such privileges, except as a sacrifice required by God, without 
" despising " God who gave them. But more than this : he was the 
head of the chosen family; on him devolved the blessing of Abraham, 
that "in his seed all families of the earth should be blessed ;" and, in 
despising his birthright, he put himself out of the sacred family, and 
so became a "profane person." His sin must not be overlooked in 




BURIAL OF ABRAHAM. 



70 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

our indignation at the fraud of Jacob, which, as we shall see presently, 
brought its own retribution as well as its own gain. 

Driven from Lahai-roi by a famine, Isaac was forbid- 
b. c. loOo. c | en j^ q q( j ^ g j own i Egypt, and was commanded 

to remain m the land. At the same time the promise was renewed 
to him. He betook himself to his father's old residence at Beersheba ; 
and here he practised the same deceit of which his father had been 
guilty by giving out that his wife was his sister. The falsehood was 
discovered ■ but the remonstrance of Abimelech (apparently the son 
of Abraham's contemporary) was followed by special protection and 
respect both from king and people. Isaac now made an advance 
beyond the pastoral life — " He sowed in that land, and received in 
the same year an hundred-fold: and Jehovah blessed him." His 
prosperity roused the envy of the Philistines, who had filled up the 
wells dug by Abraham, as a precaution (it should seem) against his 
return. At length Abimelech desired Isaac to leave his country; 
and he retired along the valley of Gerar, digging his father's wells 
anew, and restoring their former names. Two Avells so dug were dis- 
puted with him by the herdmen of Abimelech, and at once yielded by 
Isaac, who gave the wells the names of Ezek (contention) and Sitnah 
(hatred). His peaceful conduct not only secured him the quiet 
possession of a third well, which he named Rehoboth (room), but 
brought him a visit from Abimelech, who made a treaty with Isaac 
at a newly discovered well, which was hence called Shebah (the oath), 
and w T hich gave its name a second time to Beersheba (the well of the 
oath). There is no reason to consider this as different from Abra- 
ham's Beersheba. 

This tranquil course of Isaac's life, which presents a marked con- 
trast to the varied incidents of Abraham's career, was vexed by the 
disobedience of Esau, who, at the age of forty married two Hittite 
wives, thus introducing heathen alliances into the chosen family. 
But a greater family trial was in store for Isaac. The approach of 
his hundredth year and the infirmity of his sight warned him to per- 
form the solemn act by which, as prophet as well as father, he was to 
hand down the blessing of Abraham to another generation. Of course 
he designed for Esau the blessing which, once given, was the authori- 
tative and irrevocable act of the patriarchal power ; and he desired 
Esau to prepare a feast of venison for the occasion. Esau was not 
likely to confess the sale of his birthright, nor could Jacob venture 
openly to claim the benefit of his trick* Whether Rebekah knew of 
that transaction, or whether moved by partiality only, she came to 




c 
h 

c 

c 

c 



71 



72 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



the aid of her favorite son, and devised the stratagem by which Jacob 
obtained his father's blessing. This chapter gives another example 
of the matchless power and beauty of the sacred narrative, in the 
quiet statement of the facts ; the preparation of the scheme step by 
step ; the suspicious scrutiny of Isaac ; the persistent fraud with which 
Jacob baffles the passionate appeal made even after the blessing has 
been given — u Art thou my very son Esau ?" — the horror of Isaac 
and the despair of Esau when his return discovers the fraud ; the 
weeping of the strong man, and his passionate demand — " Hast thou 
not reserved a blessing for me ?" Like Ishmael, he received a tem- 
poral blessing, the fatness of the earth and the dew df heaven, the 
warrior's sword, qualified by subjection to his brother, whose yoke, 
however, he was at some time to break. The prophecy was fulfilled 

in the prosperity of the 
Idumseans, their martial 



prowess, and their con- 
stant conflicts with the 
Israelites, by whom they 
were subdued under 
David over whom they 
triumphed at the Baby- 
lonian Captivity, and to 
whom they at last gave a 
king in the person of 
Herod the Great. But 
all this was no compensa- 
tion for the loss of the 
higher and spiritual bless- 
ing which fell to the lot of Jacob, and which involved, in addition 
to all temporal prosperity, a dominion so universal that it could only 
be fulfilled by the kingdom of Messiah. 

The moral aspect of the transaction is plain to those who 
are willing to see that the Bible represents the patriarchs 
as " men compassed with infirmity," favored by the grace of God, but 
not at all endowed with sinless perfection. It is just this, in fact, 
that makes their lives a moral lesson for us. Examples have occurred 
in the lives of Abraham and Isaac; but the whole career of Jacob is 
the history of a growing moral discipline. God is not honored by 
glossing over the patriarch's great faults of character, which were cor- 
rected by the discipline of severe suffering. We need not withhold 
indignant censure from Rebekah's cupidity on behalf of her favorite 




JACOB OBTAINS THE BLESSING. 



b. c. 179G. 




o 

M 

cc 

> 

CO 

W 

c 

D 

«! 



ISAAC AND JACOB. 73 

son go like her family — and the mean deceit to which she tempts 

him. Nor is Isaac free from the blame of that foolish fondness, 
which as is usual with moral weakness, gives occasion to crime in 
others. What, then, is the difference between them and Esau? 
Simply this — that they, in their hearts, honored the God whom he 
despised, though their piety was corrupted by their selfish passions. 
Jacob valued the blessing which he purchased wrongfully, and sought 
more wrongfully to secure. But Esau, whose conduct was equally 
unprincipled in desiring to receive the blessing which was no longer 
his, was rightly "rejected, when he Avould have inherited the blessing." 
His selfish sorrow and resentment could not recall the choice he had 
made, or stand in the place of genuine repentance. " He found no 
place of repentance, though he sought it with tears/' and he is 
held forth as a great example of unavailing regret for spiritual bless- 
ings wantonly thrown away. 

In his anger against Jacob, Esau resolved to kill. him ; but unwil- 
ling to distress his father, deferred the execution of his vengeance until 
Isaac's death. Rebekah having become aware of his intention re- 
moved Jacob from this danger by sending him away to her family at 
Haran. Isaac approved the plan, as best calculated to secure a 
proper wife for Jacob, and repeating to him the blessing of Abraham, 
sent him on his way. 

With his staff in his hand, the heir of the promises retraced, as a 
solitary wanderer, the path by which Abraham had traversed Canaan. 
At one stage of his journey he halted upon the sight of his grand- 
father's encampment near Bethel, and here he passed the night, with 
a stone for his pillow. In this memorable spot, with the stones of 
the altar of the covenant lying around him, and his head probably 
resting upon one of them, he was visited by God in a dream. He 
beheld a flight of stairs reaching from earth to the gates of heaven, 
along which the angels of God were descending and ascending, some 
going forth on their missions as ministering spirits upon earth, and 
others returning to carry their reports to Him who had sent them 
forth. The vision was beautifully illustrative of God's providence, 
and was succeeded by another vision in which Jehovah appeared to 
Jacob, and added to the renewal of the covenant a special promise 
of protection. Jacob awoke, conscious that he was in the presenoe 
of his Maker, of whom he had been unmindful when he had lain 
down, and promptly dedicated to him himself and all that God 
should give him. As a memorial of his vow, he set up the stone 
which had been his pillow for a monument, and consecrating it with 



74 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



oil, called the place Beth-el (the House of God). The date of this, the 
turning point in Jacob's religious life, is fixed by subsequent com- 
putations to be his seventy-seventh year. 

Pursuing his journey without further incident, he reached Padan- 
arani, the home of his mother's relatives. Upon his arrival there, he 
encountered his cousin Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Laban, 
giving water to her father's flocks at the well before the place. He 
recognized her and revealed himself to her, and after welcoming him, 
she took him to her father's house, where he was warmly greeted by 
Laban and his family. 

It is not the custom in the East for a man to live on the bounty 
of his relative, and Jacob at once engaged to serve Laban as a shep- 
herd for wages. Laban had two daughters. Leah, the elder, was 

afflicted with a dullness or weak- 
ness of the eyes, but Rachel was a 
full-blown beauty. Jacob was 
deeply in love with her from the 
first, and agreed to serve Laban 
for seven years if he would give 
him Rachel. Even in this tender 
relation Jacob encountered the 
trickery which he had been so 
prompt to make use of for his own 
benefit. Laban entered into the 
agreement with him, but resolved 
to palm Leah off upon him, know- 
ing that her defect would prevent 
any one from seeking her in marriage. The forms of an eastern 
wedding, which require the bride to be closely veiled, made it easy 
for Laban to carry out the deception, and Jacob discovered the cheat 
only when too late to remedy it. Laban excused his knavery by 
saving that the customs of the country obliged him to many the 
elder sister before the younger ; but he gave Rachel also to Jacob, 
on condition that he should receive seven years' additional service 
for her. During 1 these seven vears, in which Jacob remained faithful 
to his agreement, there were born to him eleven sons and a daughter. 
Their names will be found further on. 

After the birth of Joseph, his first son by Rachel, Jacob wished 
to become his own master ; but Laban prevailed on him to serve him 
still longer for a part of the produce of his flocks, to be distinguished 
by certain marks. Laban endeavored to cheat him out of his wages, 




THE VEIL. 



ISAAC AND JACOB 



75 



but Jacob, by his superior knowledge of cattle breeding, was enabled 
to entirely defeat his father-in-law's schemes, and to reap all the 
advantage of the bargain. The whole transaction is illustrative of 
the defective morality of the times. God now commanded Jacob to 
return to the land of his birth, and the patriarch, gathering up his 
possessions, fled secretly from Laban. He had been twenty years in 
the service of his father-in-law — fourteen for his wives and six for his 
cattle. He crossed the Euphrates, struck across the desert by the 
great fountain at Palmyra ; then traversed the eastern part of the 
plain of Damascus and the plateau of Bashan, and entered Gilead, 
which is the range of mountains east of the Jordan, forming the 
frontier between Palestine and the Assyrian desert. 

As soon as 

b. c. 1753. T ,. -, 

he discovered 

Jacob's flight, Laban 
summoned his kindred, 
and set out in pursuit of 
him, his anger increased 
by the loss of his house- 
hold gods {terajphim), 
which Rachel had secret- 
ly stolen. Overtaking 
the fugitives he demand- 
ed the return of his idols, 
and Rachel seeing that 
her folly had exposed 
her husband to capture, 

ingeniously concealed the objects of her father's search, and Laban 
failing to find them ceased to be angry. Laban, forewarned by God 
not to injure Jacob, made a covenant with his son-in-law; and a 
heap of stones was erected as a boundary between them, and called 
Galeed [the heap of witness). "As in later times, the fortress on these 
heights of Gilead became the frontier post of Israel against the 
Aramaic tribe that occupied Damascus, so now the same line of 
heights became the frontier between the nation in its youth and the 
older Aramaic tribe of Mesopotamia. As now, the confines of two 
Arab tribes are marked by the rude cairn or pile of stones erected at 
the boundary of their respective territories, so the pile of stones and 
the tower or pillar, erected by the two tribes of Jacob and Laban, 
marked that the natural limit of the range of Gilead should be their 
actual limit also." Jacob now received a divine encouragement to 




JACOB FLEEING FROM LABAN. 




76 



ISAAC AND JACOB. XI 

meet the new dangers of the land he was entering. His eyes were 
opened to see a troop of angels, " the host of God," sent for his pro- 
tection, and forming a second camp beside his own ; and he called the 
name of the place Mahanaim (the two camps or hosts). 

His first danger was from the revenge of Esau, who had now 
become powerful in Mount Seir, the land of Edom. In reply to his 
conciliatory message, Esau came to meet him with four hundred armed 
men. Well might Jacob dread his purpose ; for though such a retinue 
might be meant to do him honor, it might also be designed to insure 
revenge. " Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. " He had now 
reached the valley of the Jabbok. He divided his people and herds 
into two bands, that if the first were smitten, the second might 
escape. Then he turned to God in prayer, and his petition forms the 
first prayer on record. To prayer he adds prudence, and sends for- 
ward present after present that their reiteration might win his 
brother's heart. This done, he rested for the night ; but, rising up 
before the day, he sent forward his wives and children across the ford 
of the Jabbok, remaining for a while in solitude to prepare his mind 
for the trial of the day. It was then that " a man " appeared and 
wrestled with him till the morning rose. This " man " was the 
"Angel Jehovah," and the conflict was a repetition in act of the 
prayer which we have already seen Jacob offering in words. This is 
clearly stated by the prophet Hosea : " By his strength he had power 
with God : yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed : he 
wept, and made supplication unto him." Though taught his own 
weakness by the dislocation of his thigh at the angel's touch, he 
gained the victory, by his importunity — " I will not let thee go 
except thou bless me " — and he received the new name of Israel (a 
prince of God), as a sign that "he had prevailed with God, and 
should, therefore, prevail with man." Well knowing with whom 
he had to do, he called the place Peniel (the face of God), " for I 
have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." The memory 
of his lameness, which he seems to have carried with him to his 
grave, was preserved by the custom of the Israelites not to cat of the 
sinew in the hollow of the thigh. 

Jacob had descended into the valley of the Jabbok at sunrise, when 
he saw Esau and his troop. He divided his last and most precious 
band, placing first the handmaids and their children, then Leah and 
her children, and Rachel and Joseph last. Advancing before them 
all, he made his obeisance to Esau, who "ran to meet him, and till 
on his neck and kissed him: and they wept." After a cordial inter- 



78 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



view, Jacob prudently declined his brother's offer to march with him 
as a guard j and Esau returned to Mount Seir, and we hear no more 
of him except the genealogy of his descendants, the Edomites. 

Jacob pursued his journey westward and halted at Succoth, so 
called from his having there put up "booths" (Succoth) for his cattle, 
as well as a house for himself. He then crossed the Jordan, and 
arrived at Shechem, which had grown since the time of Abraham 
into a powerful city, and was named after Shechem, the son of 
Hamor, prince of the Amorites. From them he bought a piece of 
land, the first possession of the family in Canaan, on which he pitched 
his tent, and built an altar to God, as the giver of his new name, 
and the God of the race who were ever to bear it — " God, the God 
of Israel" (El-elohe- Israel). The memory of his abode there is 




RACHEL'S TOMB. 



still preserved by "Jacob's Well," on the margin of which his 
divine Son taught the woman of Sychar (Shechem) a better worship 
than that of sacred places. 

He was soon involved in a conflict with the Shechemites, through 
their violence to Dinah, and the treacherous revenge of Simeon and 
Levi, which afterward brought on them their father's curse. The 
city of Shechem was taken ; but Jacob deemed it prudent to avoid the 
revenge of the Canaanites by retiring from the neighborhood. It 
seems probable that he returned afterward and rescued " from the 
Amorites with his sword and his bow" the piece of land he had 



ISAAC AND JACOB. ?9 

before purchased, and which he left, as a special inheritance, to 
Joseph. 

Meanwhile Jacob returned, by the command of God, to Bethel, and 
i7Qwo performed the vows which he had there made when he 
fled from home, and received from God a renewal of the 
covenant. There Rachel's nurse, Deborah, died, and was buried 
beneath " the oak of weeping." As he journeyed southward, and 
was near Ephrath or Ephratah, the ancient name of Bethlehem, 
Rachel died in giving birth to Jacob's youngest son. The dying 
mother called him Ben-oni (son of my sorrow) ; but the fond father 
changed his name to Ben-Jamin (son of the right hand). The grave 
of Rachel was long marked by the pillar which Jacob erected over 
it; and her memory was associated with the town of Bethlehem. 
Jacob's next resting-place, near the tower of Edar, was marked by 
the incest of Reuben, which forfeited his birthright. At length he 
reached the encampment of his father Isaac, at the old station of 
Mamre, beside Hebron. Here Isaac died at the age of 180 years, 
"old and full of days, and his sons Esau and Jacob buried 
him." This was thirteen years after Joseph was carried to Egypt; 
but the whole course of that narrative is reserved for the next 
chapter. The following is the list of Jacob's twelve sons, in their 
order of precedence, those of his wives ranking before those of their 
handmaids, with the significance of their names : 

(i.) The sons of Leah: Reuben (see! a son), Simeon (hearing), Levi 
(joined), Judah (praise), Issachar (hire), Zebulun (dwelling). 

(ii.) The sons of Rachel: Joseph (adding), Benjamin (son of the 
right hand). 

(iii.) The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid : Dan (judging), 
Naphtali (my wrestling). 

(iv.) The sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid : Gad (a troop), Asher 
(happy). 

Besides Dinah (judgment), the daughter of Leah. 



80 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



CHAPTER VII. 




b. c. 1729. 



THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT — FROM THE SALE OF JOSEPH TO THE DEATH OF 

JOSEPH. 
[a. m. 2275-2369. B. c. 1729-1635.] 

E must now go back over a period of thirteen years from the 
death of Isaac, in order to take up the narrative of the life of 
Joseph, one of the most charming episodes of the Scriptures, 
from the beginning. It will be well for the reader to re- 
member that the death of Rachel and the birth of Benjamin 
probably occurred only a short time before Joseph was sold into Egypt. 
Up to this time he had been petted by his father as the youngest son, 
and was doubtless more than ever dear to him now as the 
child of his newly-lost Rachel. Although the character 
of Joseph is one of the purest to be found in Scripture, we see in it 

the injurious effects of parental 
partiality. Joseph, elated unduly 
by his father's preference, became 
a censor and informer upon his 
brethren, and thus incurred their 
bitter hatred. Jacob to mark his 
preference for his favorite chose 
for him a special dress, or "coat 
of many colors," and this greatly 
increased the ill will of his breth- 
ren. 

To add to their hostility, Joseph 
dreamed two dreams, which even 
his father, who seems to have dis- 
cerned their prophetic character, 
censured his imprudence in repeat- 
josepii and ins brethren. ing. In the first dream his broth- 
ers' sheaves of corn bowed down 
to his, which stood upright in their midst ; a most fit type not only of 
their submission to him, but of their suing to him for corn in Egypt. 
The second dream was of a wider and higher import. It included 
his father and his mother, as well as his brethren (now denned as eleven), 




82 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

in the reverence done to him ; and the emblems chosen leave little 
doubt that the dream prefigured the homage of all nature to Him 
whose sign was the Star of Bethlehem, and of whom Joseph was one 
of the clearest types. Joseph's brethren resolved to avert the humili- 
ation by his death. 

Jacob was now sojourning at Hebron, with his father Isaac, while 
his sons fed his flocks where they could find pasture. During this 
period Joseph was sometimes with his brethren, and sometimes en- 
gaged in carrying messages from his father to them. Thus was he 
sent from Hebron to Shechem, where the piece of land purchased by 
Jacob of the Amorites had probably been recovered. Arriving there, 
he found that his brethren had gone farther north to Dothan, a place 
apparently in the neighborhood of Shechem. Thither he followed to 
deliver his father's loving message. His brethren recognized him at 
a distance, and determined to kill him as soon as he came up. Reuben 
opposed the bloody proposal, and succeeded in changing it to a resolu- 
tion to seize him and cast him into a neighboring pit, from which the 
elder brother intended to rescue him and deliver him to his father. 
As soon as Joseph arrived, therefore, he was seized, stripped of his 
tunic, and cast into the pit. This done, his brethren coolly sat down 
to eat bread. While engaged in this repast they saw a caravan of 
Arab merchants approaching by the road which leads from Mount 
Gilead through Dothan to Egypt, carrying to the latter country the 
spices and gums of the Syrian desert. Reuben was absent when the 
caravan reached the pasture ground of Jacob's sons, and Judah now 
suggested that they might get rid of their prisoner without the guilt 
of murder, by selling him to the strangers. Accordingly, they drew 
him up from the pit, and when the caravan came up, sold him to the 
Midianite merchants for twenty shekels or pieces of silver, the very 
sum which was, under the law, the value of a male from five to twenty 
years old — a type of the sale of Him " whom the children of Israel 
did value." To conceal their guilt, they killed a kid, dipped Joseph's 
tunic in its blood, and went back to their father with the tale that a 
wild beast had devoured Joseph ; and their guilty consciences had to 
bear the trial of pretending to comfort him, while he refused all 
comfort. 

Meanwhile Joseph was carried by the Midianite merchants into 
Egypt, and sold to Potiphar, who is described as " an officer of Pha- 
raoh and the Captain of the Guard." Potiphar's true office was captain 
of the executioners. Joseph found favor with his new master, and in 
course of time was made his overseer. It was the custom then in 




JOSEPH SOLD BY HIS BRETHREN. 



83 



84 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Egypt for great men to entrust their property to the management of 
scribes who kept a rigid and minute record of every transaction in 
order to protect their masters against the notorious dishonesty of the 
Egyptian laborers. Probably in no country was farming ever more 
systematic. Joseph's previous knowledge of tending flocks, and per- 
haps of husbandry, and his truthful character, exactly fitted him for 
the post of overseer. 

Joseph was seventeen when he was sold into Egypt, and thirty 
" when he stood before Pharaoh." We are not told what portion of 
these thirteen years he spent in Potiphar' s house. Probably not long, 
as it was his youthful beauty that tempted his master's wife, whose 
conduct agrees with the well-known profligacy of Egyptian women ; 
as her desire for revenge, when Joseph withstood the temptation, is 
in accordance with the .worst parts of our nature. 

Potiphar probably had some suspicion of his wife's guilt, for instead 
of bringing Joseph before the tribunal, he merely confined him in the 
state prison, which was attached to his own house. There he left him, 
and his successor, also called Potiphar, finally came to have such con- 
fidence in the Hebrew captive that he put him in charge of the other 
state prisoners, " because Jehovah was with him, and that which he 
did Jehovah made it to prosper." 

Two great officers of Pharaoh's court, the chief of the cup-bearers 
and the chief of the cooks, were now r committed to the prison in conse- 
quence of their complicity in a conspiracy which had been detected.* 
They were given in charge of Joseph, whom they soon discovered to 
be unusually favored by God, and in consequence of this belief on 
their part, they asked him to interpret certain dreams which they re- 
lated to him. He told them they were prophetic of their fate, and in- 
formed the cup-bearer that in three days he would be restored to his 
office, while to the chief of the cooks he imparted the alarming intel- 
ligence that in three days he would be hanged by order of the king. 
Each prediction was literally fulfilled. 

The cup-bearer had promised Joseph that he would mention him to 
Pharaoh and endeavor to secure his liberty, but upon obtaining his 
own release, he utterly forgot Joseph, and did not think of him again 
until two years afterward when Pharaoh was disturbed by dreams 
which none of the scribes or wise men of Egypt could interpret. Then 
the chief cup-bearer remembered Joseph, and told Pharaoh of his 
power of interpreting dreams. The king at once summoned Joseph 

* Tlic terms chief butler and chief baker, in our version are misleading as to 
their dignity. 



THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT. 



85 



into his presence, and after relating to him his dreams, asked if he 
could interpret them. After bearing witness to the true God by as- 
cribing all the power of interpretation to Him who had sent the 
dreams, Joseph explained to Pharaoh their significance, which, to an 
Egyptian, was most striking. The dream had been twofold, to mark 
its certain and speedy fulfilment. Seven years of an abundance extra- 
ordinary even for fruitful Egypt were to be followed by seven years 
of still more extraordinary dearth. In the first dream, the seven years 
of plenty were denoted by seven heifers, the sacred symbols of Isis, the 
goddess of production, which came up out of the river, the great ferti- 
lizer of Egypt, whose very soil is well called by Herodotus "the gift 
of the Nile." These were beautiful and fat, as they fed on the luxu- 
riant marsh grass by the river's bank ; but after them came up seven 
others, so ill-looking and lean that Pharaoh had never seen the like 
for badness, which devoured the 
seven fat kine, and remained as 
lean as they were before. 

The second dream was still 
plainer. There sprang up a stalk 
of that branching Egyptian wheat, 
which now grows in our own fields 
from seed found in mummy-cases. 
That seen by Pharaoh had the 
unusual number of seven ears, 
full and good, denoting the seven 
years of plenty. Then there sprang 
up another stalk, also bearing 
seven ears, thin and blasted with 
the east wind, and so mildewed 
that they infected and consumed 
the seven good ears. The wise 
men of Egypt must indeed have 

been fools not to understand these symbols, which embraced both the 
animal and vegetable wealth of the land. 

Joseph did not content himself with interpreting the dreams, but 
went farther, and advised Pharaoh to put some competent person in 
charge of the kingdom, whose duty it should be to make provision 
against the seven years of famine by storing up the surplus corn of 
the years of plenty. Pharaoh was struck with the propriety of the 
suggestion, and declared that he knew of no one so fit to execute this 
task as Joseph himself, " in whom was the Spirit of God." He made 




JOSEPH TREATS HIS BRETHREN 
ROUGHLY. 



86 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

him his vicegerent over Egypt, and gave him his own signet, the 
indisputable mark of royal power. He clothed him in line linen 
robes, put on him a collar of gold, and caused him to ride in the sec- 
ond royal chariot, before which ail the people were bidden to fall 
prostrate, and had him proclaimed with all the ceremonies which we 
still see represented on the monuments. Joseph now assumed the 
Coptic name of Zaphnath Paaneah (a revcaler of secrets) • and mar- 
ried Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest or prince of On 
(Heliopolis), by whom he had two sons during the seven years of 
plenty. As a token of the oblivion of his former life, he named his 
elder son Manasseh (forgetting), and he called the younger Ephraim 
(double fruitfulness), in grateful commemoration of his blessings. 
When Joseph afterward became his father's heir, the double share of 
the inheritance which fell to him was indicated by each of his sons 
ranking with the sons of Jacob as the head of a distinct tribe. 

_, . During the seven years of plenty, in which the vield 

b. c 1706 

was so abundant that the people were inclined to wasteful- 
ness, Joseph exerted himself with energy to lay up stores for the ap- 
proaching famine. The ordinary royal impost was one-tenth of the 
proceeds of the country, and during the years of plenty this was 
raised to one-fifth, or a double tithe. The corn was stored up in each 
of the cities from the lands of which it was collected ; and it was thus 
secured for orderly distribution in the years of famine. When that 
season arrived, its consumption was guarded by the same wise policy 
that had preserved it from being wasted in the years of plenty. The 
demand was not only from Egypt, but from the neighboring countries, 
Canaan, and probably parts of Syria, Arabia, and Africa, to which 
the famine extended, and whose corn was soon exhausted. We may 
assume that the Egyptians also soon used up their private stores. 
Joseph then opened all the store-houses and sold unto the Egyptians j 
" and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries 
came into Egypt to buy corn, because the famine was so sore in all 
lands." 

At the end of two years (see Gen. xlv. 6) all the money of the 
Egyptians and Canaanites had passed into Pharaoh's treasury. At 
this crisis we do not see how Joseph can be acquitted of raising the 
despotic authority of his master on the broken fortunes of the people; 
but yet he made a moderate settlement of the power thus acquired. 
First the cattle and then the land of the Egyptians became the 
property of Pharaoh, and the people were removed from the country 
to the cities. They were still permitted, however, to cultivate their 



88 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



. '-v. v 



lands as tenants under the crown, paying a rent of one-fifth of the 
produce, and this became the permanent law of the tenure of land in 
Egypt ; but the land of the priests was left in their own possession. 

The seven years' famine had the most important bearing on the 
chosen family of Israel. When all the corn in Canaan was exhausted, 
Jacob sent his sons to buy in Egypt ; but he kept back Benjamin 
" lest mischief should befall him." Probably he would not trust 
Rachel's remaining child with his brethren. We need not recount 
that well-known narrative of their two visits to Joseph, and his final 
discovery of himself. 

We do not think that Joseph was unnecessarily harsh to his breth- 
ren, or that he went a step farther than was required, in order to 

gain over them the power which 
he was ready to use for their good. 
The short imprisonment of Simeon 
was but a taste of the sorrow to 
which he and his brothers had 
subjected their brother for four- 
teen years. The getting of Benja- 
min into his power was needful, 
lest Jacob's fondness should frus- 
trate all his plans; and in the 
final scene of recognition he was 
all tenderness and forgiveness, and 
not a word of reproach escaped 
him. 

Having recognized in his broth- 
ers the unconscious instruments 
of God's providence, he himself 
became almost as unconsciously the instrument of carrying out the 
plan which Jehovah had revealed to Abraham. Wishing to secure 
to his father and brethren a safe and happy retreat in Egypt, he 
determined to remove them from Canaan to the country where his 
great power would enable him to provide for them. 

So he sent for his father and the whole family, and 
brought them from Beersheba into Egypt, and God en- 
couraged Jacob by a vision, commanding him to go down, and prom- 
ising to bring him up again in the person of his descendants, who are 
henceforth called bv the collective name of Israel, and assuring him 
that Joseph should close his eyes. So he went down, with his sons 
and their wives and children, and all their cattle. The house of 




JOSEPH'S FORGIVENESS. 



b. c. 1706. 



THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT. 89 

Israel now numbered seventy souls, without reckoning wives. The 
number is thus made up : — 

I. The children of Leah, 32, viz : — 

(1.) Reuben and four sons 5 

(2.) Simeon and six sons 7 

(3.) Levi and three sons ' 4 

(4.) Judah and five sons (of whom two were dead) and two were 

grandsons 6 

(5.) Issachar and four sons 5 

(6.) Zebulun and three sons 4 

Dinah .... 1 

II. The children of Zilpah, considered as Leah's, 16, viz: — 

(7.) Gad and seven sons 8 

(8.) Asher : four sons, one daughter, and two graudsons 8 

III. The children of Rachel, 14, viz : — 

-* 
(9.) Joseph (see below). 
(10.) Benjamin and ten sons 11 

IV. The children of Bilhah, considered as Rachel's, 7, viz : — 

(11.) Dan and one son 2 

(12.) Naphtali and four sons 5 

Total of those "that came with Jacob into Egypt " 66 

To these must be added Jacob, Joseph, and two sons 4 

Total of Israel's house 70 

These are the numbers of the Hebrew text, but the LXX. com- 
plete the genealogy by adding the children of Manasseh and Ephraim, 
who of course ranked with those of the sons of Jacob, namely, Machir, 
the son of Manasseh, and Galeed (Gilead), the son of Machir (2) ; 
Sutalaam (Shutelah) and Taam (Tathath), the sons of Ephraim, and 
Edom, the son of Sutalaam (3), making five in all. St. Stephen 
naturally quotes the LXX., the version commonly used, especially by 
the Hellenistic Jews, with whom his discussion began. 

On their arrival in Egypt, Joseph, after a most affecting meeting 
with his father, presented five of his brethren to Pharaoh; and the 
king being informed that they were shepherds, a class held in 
abomination by the Egyptians, gave them for their separate abode the 
land of Goshen* or Rameses, which was the best pasture-ground in 

* The "land of Goshen," also called Goshen simply, appears to have borne 
another name, "the land of Rameses" (Gen. xlvii. 11), unless this be the name 
of a district of Goshen. It was between Joseph's residence at the time and the 
frontier of Palestine, and apparently the extreme province toward that frontier 
(Gen. xlvi. 29 . Gen. xlvi. 33, 34, shows that Goshen was scarcely regarded as 
a part of Egypt Proper, and was not peopled by Egyptians — characteristics that 
would positively indicate a frontier province. The next mention of Goshen eon- 



90 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

all Egypt, and intrusted to them his own flocks, while Joseph sup- 
plied them with bread during the remaining five years of famine. 
That they were tillers of the land, as well as shepherds, is clear from 
their being employed " in all manner of service in the field " (Exod. 
i. 14), and from the allusion of Moses to " Egypt, where thou sowedst 
thy seed and wateredst it" (Deut. x. 11). 

Joseph next brought his father before Pharaoh, and the aged patri- 
arch bestowed his blessing on the mighty king. In reply to 
Pharaoh's inquiry about his age, he said : — " The days of my pil- 
grimage are 130 years: few and evil have the days of the years of 
my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the 
life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." 

Thus was begun the first portion of the promise made by Jehovah 
to Abraham. That promise had now been given tw T o hundred years, 
and the chosen family had neither possessions nor alliances in the 
promised land. But they would soon have sought for both ; and the 
character already manifested by Jacob's sons augured ill for their pos- 
sessing either purity or piety among the Canaanites. The chosen 
race was no longer to be severed from the rejected branches, as in the 
case of Ishmael and Esau; but the twelve sons of Jacob were to 
found the twelve tribes of Israel, even the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah 
being legitimated and reckoned as belonging; to Leah and Rachel 
respectively. Their present relation to Canaan must be broken off, 
that it might be formed anew in due time. They must be placed 
among a people with whom they could not mix, but from whom they 
might learn the arts of civilization and industry; and there, under the 
discipline of affliction, the family must be consolidated into the nation. 
The few remaining years of Jacob's life were spent in 
tranquillity and abundance. He lived seventeen years in 
Egypt, and beheld his descendants "multiply exceedingly." The 

firms the previous inference that its position was between Canaan and the Delta 
(Gen. xlvii. 1, 5, 6, 11). Goshen was a pastoral country, where some of 
Pharaoh's cattle were kept. The clearest indications of the exact position of 
Goshen are those afforded by the narrative of the Exodus. The Israelites set out , 
from the town of Rameses in the land of Goshen, made two days' journey to 
"the edge of the wilderness," and in one day more reached the Red Sea. A.t 
the starting-point two routes lay before them, "the way of the land of the Philis- 
tines . . . that [was] near," and "the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea" 
(Ex. xiii. 17, 18). From these indications we infer that the land of Goshen must 
have in part been near the eastern side of the ancient Delta, Rameses lying within 
the valley now called the Wddi-t-Tumeyldt, about thirty miles in a direct course 
from the ancient western shore of the Arabian Gulf. 



THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT 



91 



chief record of this period is his prophetic blessing on his sons — one 
of the most important passages in the whole Bible. 

As he felt his end approaching, he sent for Joseph and made him 
swear that he would not bury him in Egypt, but carry him to the 
sepulchre of his fathers. Soon after this, Joseph heard that his father 
was sick ; and he went to visit him with his sons, Manasseh and 
Ephraim. The dying patriarch blessed Joseph and his sons, in the 
name of the " God, before whom his fathers Abraham and Isaac had 
walked, the God who had 
fed him all his life long, 
the Angel w T ho had re- 
deemed him from all evil." 
He claimed Ephraim and 
Manasseh for his own, 
placing them even before 
Reuben and Simeon, whose 
lust and violence had for- 
feited their birthright ; and 
henceforth they were num- 
bered among the heads 
of the tribes of Israel. 
Throughout the whole 
scene, he gave Ephraim the 
precedence over Manasseh ; 
and, though unable to see, 
he crossed his hands, dis- 
regarding Joseph's opposi- 
tion ; so that in blessing 
them his right hand was 
on Ephraim's head, and 
his left on Manasseh's. 
Thus was added one more 
lesson of God's sovereign 
choice to the examples of 

Abel, Shorn, Abram, Isaac, and himself, who were all younger sons. 
He foretold for them a prosperity which would make them the envy 
of the other tribes of Israel; and he ended by giving Joseph an 
extra portion above his brethren, thus marking him as his heir, in 
respect of property ; for the royal power was given to Judah, and the 
priesthood was afterward assigned to Levi. The division of these 
three great functions of the patriarchal government is already a mark 
of the transition from the family to the nation. 




EGYPTIAN MUMMIES. 



92 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Having thus given Joseph his separate and special 
blessing for himself and his two sons, Jacob called all his 
sons to hear the last words of Israel their father. He plainly de- 
clared that his words were of prophetic import, and that their fulfil- 
ment would reach even to the last days (Gen. xlix. 1). Could we ex- 
pound them fully, we should probably find that, in most, if not all the 
several blessings, there is a reference — first, to the personal character 
and fortunes of the twelve patriarchs; secondly, to the history and 
circumstances of the tribes descended from them ; and, lastlv, a 
typical allusion to the twelve tribes of the spiritual Israel. We can 
trace the first two elements in all cases, and the last is conspicuous in 
the blessings on Judah and Joseph, the two heads of the whole 
family. But the details of the interpretation are confessedly most 
difficult. The whole prophecy should be compared with " the bless- 
ing, wherewith Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel 
before his death.'' Like the latter, Jacob's prophecy contains a 
blessing on each tribe, though in some cases it is almost disguised 
under the censure which his sons had incurred. 

I. Reuben, the eldest son, is acknowledged as his father's 
"strength and the beginning: of his might," and as "excelling; in 
dignity and power ;" for such was his privilege by right of birth. 
He is always named first in the genealogies, and his numerous and 
powerful tribe took the lead in war. But he had forfeited his special 
birthright by a shameful act of wantonness, which is compared to 
water bursting its bounds. And not only did Reuben yield the royal 
dignity to Judah, but, the possessions of the tribe lying in the most 
exposed position east of the Jordan, they were the first to become 
subject to a foreign power. 

II. and III. Simeon and Levi are named together, as akin in 
character, and together they are cut off from succeeding to the place 
forfeited by Reuben, for their cruelty to the Shechemites. The pen- 
alty of being " scattered in Israel," instead of having a share in the 
inheritance, reads like a curse ; but it was turned into a blessing. 
The tribe of Levi, having redeemed its parent's fault by taking the 
Lord's side in the matter of the golden calf, was consecrated to the 
priesthood, and, though they had no inheritance in Israel, they en- 
joyed a part of the inheritance of all the rest. Simeon early lost 
consequence among the tribes. His territory, which lay on the 
extreme south-west border, was never wrested from the Philistines. 
Many members of the tribe gained subsistence and honor as teachers, 
" scattered " among all the other tribes. 






* T H E DESCENT INTO EGYPT. £3 

IV. Judah is announced, in a grand burst of prophetic fervor, as 
adding to his other dignities that of being the ancestor of the Messiah. 
In fact, the promise, which has been limited step by step, is now 
centred in this tribe. The key-note of the whole blessing is in the 
meaning of Judah's name, Praise ; and it includes the following 
points : — 

(1.) Precedence among his brethren and victory over his enemies. 

(2.) He is denoted by a fit symbol, which is varied to give it a 
complete force — the lion's whelp, exulting over the prey in youthful 
vigor, the lion couching in his den, the lioness whom none may 
provoke but at their peril. It was doubtless from this prophecy that 
the tribe of Judah took a lion's whelp for its standard, with the 
motto, " Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered." 

(3.) Then follows a plain declaration of the royalty of Judah. 
From him was descended David, the son of Jesse, and in his house 
the sceptre of Judah remained, while the rebellious kingdom of the 
other tribes had many different dynasties, till the Babylonish Cap- 
tivity. The civil rulers of the restored state (now called Jews, Judcel, 
because belonging chiefly to this tribe) were at first of the house of 
David, as in the case of Zerubbabel. Even though the peculiar 
religious character of the new commonwealth threw the chief power 
into the hands of the priests, and though Judas Maccabseus and his 
line of princes were of the race of Levi, the nation which they gov- 
erned was composed essentially of the tribe of Judah. And thus 
" the sceptre did not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between 
his feet," till the usurpation of the Idumsean Herod gave a sign of 
" the coming of the Shiloh," which was verified by the birth of 
Jesus Christ, the Son of David and of Judah. 

V. Zebulun's lot is predicted in terms which exactly describe the 
position of the tribe between the Lake of Tiberias and the Mediterra- 
nean, bordering on the coasts of the Phoenicians, and sharing in their 
commerce. 

VI. Issachar is described by " the image of the 'strong-boned he- 
ass' — the large animal used for burdens and field-work, not the lighter 
and swifter she-ass for riding — 'couching down between the two 
hedgerows,' chewing the cud of stolid ease and quiet — which is very 
applicable, not only to the tendencies and habits, but to the very size 
and air of a rural agrarian people, while the sequel of the verse is no 
less suggestive of the certain result of such tendencies when unrelieved 
by any higher aspirations — ' He saw that rest was good, and the land 
pleasant, and he bowed his back to bear and became a slave to tribute' 



94- HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. * 

— the tribute imposed on him by the various marauding tribes who 

were attracted to his territory by the richness of the crops." The v 

of Esdraelon, which just corresponds to the territory of Issaehar, was 

the most fertile land in Palestine. 

VII. Dak, like Judah, is described by the significance of his own 

name. His territories were at the two opposite extremities of the land, 

and it is doubtful whether the delineation of Dan in Jacob's blessing 

relates to the original settlement on the western outskirts of Judah. >r 

to the northern outpost. u Dan.*' the judge, " shall judge his peop] 

he, the son of the concubine no less than the sons of Leah ; he, the 

frontier tribe no less than those in the places of honor, shall be M as one 

of the tribes of Israel.'' "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an 

adder in the path " — that is, of the invading enemy by the north or by 

the west, " that biteth the heels of the horse,'' the indigenous serpent 

biting the foreign horse unknown to Israelite warfare, " so that his 

rider shall fall backward.*' And his war-cry as from the frontier 

fortresses shall be, "For thy salvation, O Lord, I have waited. 

VIII. Gad's fortune, too, is contained in his name, 
b c. 1689. . . 

which is repeated with a play on the word : " A plundering 

troop shall plunder him, but he will plunder at their heels.'' As one 

of the tribes east of Jordan, Gad was among the first carried captive : 

and perhaps Jacob refers to this, promising that his enemies shall not 

triumph to the end — a promise which belongs also to the spiritual 

Israel. 

IX. Ashee i the happy or blessed) is promised the richest fruits of 
the earth. His land, some of the most fertile in the north of Palestine, 
yielded him '"'fat bread'' and " royal, dainties," and enabled him to 
" dip his foot in oil." But this wealth was purchased by inglorious 
ease and forbidden alliances with the heathen, whom he failed to drive 
out. Xo great action is recorded of this tribe, and it furnished no judge 
or hero to the nation. "One name alone shines out of the general ob- 
scurity — the aged widow, 'Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe 
of Aser,' who, in the very close of the history, departed not from 
the Temple, but ' served God with fastings and prayers night and 
day.' " 

X. Xaeiitali's blessing, also highly figurative, is obscured in our 
version by a mistranslation. It should be 

•• Xaphtali is a towering terebinth*; 
He hath a goodly crt-s:." 
The description, like Deborah's of 

w Xaphtali on the high places of the field," 



THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT. 95 

agrees with the position of the tribe among the highlands between 
Lebanon and the Upper Jordan, from its sources to the Sea of 
Galilee. 

XL The blessing on Joseph forms the climax of the father's fond- 
ness and the prophet's fervor. Taking his name (adding or increase) 
as a sign both of his past abundance and his future enlargement, he 
compares him to a fruitful vine, or rather a branch of the vine of Is- 
rael, throwing its shoots over the wall of the cistern by which it is 
planted ; and he promises his favorite son every form of blessing that 
man could desire or enjoy. As in all his history, so in this prophecy 
especially, Joseph is one of the most eminent types of Christ. The 
symbols of the vine, of which He is the root, and the members of His 
church the branches, and of the living water by which the living tree 
is nourished, are expounded by himself. 

XII. Benjamin is described as a wolf ravening for his prey, and 
successful in obtaining it — an image taken perhaps from the wild 
beasts, such as wolves, foxes, jackals, and hyenas, which infest the 
defiles of the territory of Benjamin. Marked as is the contrast to the 
majestic strength of Judah the lion, the warlike character is common 
to both tribes, and they were as closely connected in their history as 
the lion and the jackal are believed to be in fact. 

The concluding words show that this was a formal appointment of 
Jacob's twelve sons to be the twelve heads of the chosen race, now be- 
coming a nation, instead of its having one head as hitherto; and also 
that the blessings and prophecies of the dying patriarch had respect 
rather to the tribes than to their individual ancestors; and henceforth 
the tribes are continually spoken of as if they were persons. 

Having added one more injunction to all his sons, to bury him in 
the Cave of Machpelah, Jacob " gathered up his feet into the bed, and 
yielded up his spirit, and was gathered unto his people " at the age of 
147. After a burst of natural grief, Joseph gave orders for his em- 
balmment, and kept a mourning of forty days, according to the Egyp- 
tian custom. He then went, by Pharaoh's permission, with all his 
brethren, and the elders botli of Israel and Egypt, and a great military 
retinue, to carry the body of Jacob into Canaan. Avoiding the war- 
like Philistines, they made a circuit to A tad, near the Jordan, where 
they kept so great a mourning for seven days, that the astonished 
Canaanitcs called the place Abel-Mizraim (the mourning of Egypt}. 
Proceeding thence to Hebron, Jacob's sons buried him in the Cave of 
Machpelah. 

On their return to Egypt, Joseph's brethren, fearing the effect of 



96 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

their father's removal, sought his forgiveness, and made "submission to 
him. With tears of love, and disclaiming the right to judge them, 
which was God's alone, he returned the memorable answer — "Ye 
thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good." He promised 
still to nourish them and theirs : " And he comforted them, and spake 
kindly unto them." 

Joseph survived his father for fifty-four years, still enjoying, as we 
may assume, his honors at the court under the same dynasty, though 
possibly under a succession of kings. He saw Ephraim's children of 
the third generation, and had Manasseh's grandchildren on his knees. 
At length he died at the age of 110. He was embalmed and placed 
in a sarcophagus, but not buried. For before his death he had pre- 
dicted to his brethren their return from Egypt to the promised land ; 
and he had bound them by an oath to carry his remains with them. 

Through all their afflictions, the children of Israel kept the sacred 
deposit of Joseph's bones, and doubtless they often consoled themselves 
with his dying promise and the memory of his greatness. Amid the 
terrors of that " memorable night," when God led the people out of 
Egypt, Moses did not forget the trust. When the people were settled 
in Canaan, they buried Joseph at Shechem, in the parcel of ground 
which Jacob bought from the Amorites, and which he gave as a special 
inheritance to Joseph. 

Of the other patriarchs we are only told that "Joseph died, and all 
his brethren, and all that generation." But Stephen adds this remark- 
able statement : " Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and our 
fathers, and were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre 
that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor, the 
father of Sychem." 

Though all the Hellenistic Jews " were unable to resist the wisdom 
and spirit by which he spake," modern Christian critics have discov- 
ered that Stephen confounded Abraham's purchase of Machpelah from 
the Hittites with Jacob's purchase near Shechem from the Amorites. 
But after we have corrected the obvious blunder of a copyist, by read- 
t ing Jacob for Ab?*aham, the question remains — Were Jacob and all 
his sons buried at Shechem, in the same sepulchre as Joseph ? Not 
necessarily. The passage may simply mean that Joseph's tomb at 
Shechem was regarded as the family sepulchre. Whether the bones 
of his brethren were placed in or beside the sarcophagus of Joseph, 
and whether the remains of Jacob were removed from Hebron to 
Shechem, are questions suggested, but we scarcely think determined, 
by the words of Stephen. 




97 



98 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The interval between the death of Joseph and the be- 
b. c. 16do. gi nn j n g f the bondage in Egypt is dismissed with the 
brief but emphatic statement, that " the children of Israel were fruit- 
ful and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding 
mio-hty ; and the land was filled with them." The last words may 
imply that, while their main settlement was still at Goshen, members 
of the race were scattered over the country ; and in spite of the system 
of caste, they may have found employment as artificers and soldiers, 
as well as shepherds. If this were so, they were again restricted to the 
land of Goshen by the king who began to oppress them, and were 
thus collected for their departure. Besides the information contained 
in the genealogies, only one event is recorded during this period — the 
unsuccessful predatory expedition of Zabad, the sixth in descent from 
Ephraim, against the Philistines. This repulse happening only a 
short time before the Exodus, will help to account for the people's fear 
of the Philistines. As Stephen brings down the prosperity of the 
people till near the time of the Exodus, the bondage must have begun 
only a short time before the birth of Moses. 

The whole period of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt is 
reckoned at 430 years in the-account of their departure. It is impos- 
sible to take this number literally, consistently with other chrono- 
logical data ; but there can be no difficulty in understanding it of the 
whole pilgrimage of the chosen family, from the time when Abram 
was called to leave his home for " a land that he should afterward 
receive as an inheritance," to the time when his heirs did actually 
receive it. And accordingly St. Paul reckons 430 years from the 
promise made to Abraham to the giving of the Law (b. c. 1921-b. c. 
1491, according to the received chronology). In the covenant with 
Abraham, the period is stated at 400 years. We cannot be surprised 
at a difference of thirty years above the round number being neglected 
in a prophecy; besides, some years had already elapsed, and if we 
reckon from the last complete promise, we have only seven years 
above the 400. The 430 years may be divided into two equal periods 
— 215 years for the pilgrimage in Canaan (b. c. 1921-1706), and 215 
for the residence in Egypt (1706-1491). The bondage itself was 
probably less than 100 years, as the whole period from the death of 
Joseph to the Exodus was 144 years (b. c. 1635-1491). 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC. 99 



BOOK III. 

FROM MOSES TO JOSHUA — THE EXODUS OF THE CHOSEN NATION, 
AND THE GIVING OF THE LAW FROM SINAI. 

[a. m. 2404—2553. b. c. 1600 (cir.) 1451.] 




CHAPTER VIII. 

THE EGYPTIAN BONDAGE AND MISSION OP MOSES TO THE EXODUS. 
[A. m. 2404-2513. B. c. 1600 (cir.) 1491.] 

HE story of the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt begins in 

these words, " Now there arose up a new king over Egypt 

which knew not Joseph." Common chronology assigns the 

event to a period at or immediately following the beginning 

of the sixteenth century B. c. ; and it is probable that the 

language quoted above refers tea change of dynasty. But whether 

that change consisted in the expulsion of the shepherds and the rise 

of the great Eighteenth Dynasty of native Kings, is un- 

1/1A ' '. . certain. Be this as it may, we see the new monarch 
1600 (cir.) . , -, 

dreading some foreign war, and regarding the Israelites, 

who "were more numerous and mightier than his own subjects/' 
with jealous dread, fearful that upon the breaking out of hostilities 
they would make common cause with the enemy against him. In- 
fluenced by this t fear, he began to put in force a series of measures 
designed to prevent their rapid increase, as well as to keep them from 
escaping out of the land, which he dreaded as much as their hostility 
to him. He adopted the policy of reducing them to slavery ; and 
required of them the execution of a series of severe tasks, which he 
believed would be so onerous as to be fatal to many of them. Their 
labor consisted in field work, and especially in making bricks, and 
building the treasure cities (probably for storing up corn), Pithom 
and Raamses. The severer the labor required of them, the more they 
grew however, and their increase was so rapid that Pharaoh at length 
resolved upon a cruel and infamous plan of weakening them. He 
ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill all the male children at their 
birth, but to preserve the females alive. The midwives, however, 
"feared God," and refused to obey the tyrant's barbarous edict; 



100 



R Y OF THE B I D L E 




LF/XOR. FROM THE FJ 



>~TLE. 



and thev were rewarded by the distinetk: given to their families in 
Israel. Their names were Sbiphrah and Puah. Pharaoh then 
ordered the Egyptians to drown ail the new-born sons of the Israel - 



ites in the Nile, bat to save the girl?. 




THE PYRAMID? OF EGYPT. 



B, C. " 
of I- 



This cruel edict led. by the providence of God, to the 
rearing up at Pharaoh's own court of the future deliverer 
Amram. the son of Kohath. and grandson of Levi, had 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC 



101 



espoused Jochebed, also of the tribe of Levi, and at the time of the 
issuing of the king's edict, they had already two children, a daughter 
called Miriam (the same name as the Mary of the New Testament) 
and a son named Aaron. Soon after the promulgation of the edict a 
second son was born to them, a beautiful babe. The mother anxious 
to screen him from the fate of his race, hid him for three months, 
and when she could no longer hide him in her own house, placed 
him in a water-proof basket or ark of papyrus daubed with bitumen, 
and carrying it to the river shore, laid it among the rushes which 
grew along the banks of the Nile, and then went back to her home, 
leaving Miriam to watch the fate of the babe. She had scarcely 
departed when the daughter of the king of Egypt came down to the 
river to bathe. Seeing the basket floating upon the water, she sent 
one of her maidens to bring it to her. As she opened the basket, the 
babe wept, and the ten- 
der-hearted princess, 
touched with compas- -_gjjj|j 
sion, exclaimed, " This 
is one of the Hebrews' 
children." At this 
moment Miriam came 
forward, and having ^y/ 
received the princess' 
permission to fetch a 
nurse, she went and 
brought the child's own 
mother, to whom the 

princess committed the infant, charging her to take it and nurse it as 
the " son of Pharaoh's daughter." While she reared him as one of 
the blood royal, we may be very sure the pious mother instilled 
into her son the precepts of the true faith and the history of his own 
people; but in all other respects he was trained to manhood as an 
Egyptian prince. 

St. Stephen tells us that Moses, as the foundling was called, was 
" mighty in words and in deeds ;" but we know nothing more of his 
history until he had reached the age of forty years.* We may be 
sure that the sufferings of his countrymen had touched him very 

* This date is given by St. Stephen, and is confirmed by the whole narrative 
in the Pentateuch, which divides the life of Moses into three equal periods of forty 
years each. During the first period he was an Egyptian, during the second an 
Arabian, and during the third, the leader of Israel. 




ISRAELITES LABORING IX EGYPT. 




FINDING OF MOSES. 



102 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC. 103 

deeply, but he seems to have paid no attention to them until he had 
reached the age just mentioned. Then, during a closer insight into 
the condition of his people, he beheld an Egyptian cruelly beating an 
Israelite. As there was no one near, he made no effort to control his 
anger, but fell upon the Egyptian, slew him, and buried him in the 
sand. He hoped that his act would pass by unnoticed, but soon after, 
upon endeavoring to settle a quarrel between two Israelites, he was 
startled by the taunt with which his pacific efforts were met. " Who 
made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendfcst thou to kill me 
as thou killedst the Egyptian." This convinced him that his secret 
was no longer his own. 

The matter soon after came to the ears of Pharaoh, who threatened 
to kill Moses in retaliation, and the latter, alarmed at his danger, fled 
from Egypt, and sought refuge in the desert which surrounds the head 
of the Red Sea, and which was inhabited by the people of Midian, 
who were descended from Abraham and Keturah. The portion of 
the land of Midian to which Moses fled was probably the Peninsula 
of Sinai. Upon reaching Midian, he sat down by a well to rest, and 
while he tarried there, the seven daughters of Jethro (elsewhere called 
Reuel and Hobab), the chief sheykh (or rather prince and priest, as 
he is called in the original) of the Midianites, came to water their 
flocks. The shepherds roughly drove them away, but Moses chival- 
rously came to their assistance, and helped them, and watered their 
sheep for them. Jethro, upon learning the service the stranger had 
rendered his daughters, welcomed him to his tent ; and Moses dwelt 
with Jethro for forty years as a shepherd, taking care of his flocks. 
Jethro gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage, and by her he 
had a son, whom he called Gershom (a stranger here), in memory that 
he -was but a sojourner in a strange land. Moses neglected to circum- 
cise this son until he was compelled to do so by a divine threat as he 
went back to Egypt. We read afterward of a second son named Eli- 
ezer (my God is a help), in memory of his father's deliverance from 
Pharaoh. 

Forty years passed away, and Moses still kept Jethro's flocks in 
Midian. Meanwhile the period which God had promised Abraham 
should mark the deliverance of Israel was drawing near. The Pha- 
raoh from whom Moses had fled was dead, and the way was thus 
opened for his return to Egypt. His successor, the Pharaoh of the 
Exodus, was even more cruel to the oppressed people, and " the chil- 
dren of Israel cried, and their cry came up to God by reason of the 
bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his 



104 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God looked 
upon the children of Israel, and God knew them." 

The scene chosen for the revelation to Moses of his 

b c 1491 

divine mission was the same amid which the Israelites, led 

out by him from Egypt, were to see God's presence again revealed, 
and to receive the law from his own voice. Unchanged in its awful 
solitary grandeur from that day to this, it is one of the most remarka- 
ble spots on the surface of the earth. The Peninsula of Sinai is the 
promontory enclosed between the two arms of the Red Sea, and 
culminating at its southern part in the terrific mass of granite rocks 
known by the general name of Sinai.* This desert region bordered 

* The upper region of Sinai forms an irregular circle of thirty or forty miles in 
diameter, possessing numerous sources of water, a temperate climate, and a soil 
capable of supporting animal and vegetable life ; for which reason it is the refuge 
of all the Bedouins when the low country is parched up. This, therefore, was 
the part of the peninsula best adapted to the residence of nearly a year, during 
which the Israelites were numbered, and received their laws from the Most High. 
In the highest and central part of this region, seven thousand feet above the level 
of the sea, rises the sacred summit of Horeb or Sinai. The two names are used 
almost indiscriminately in the Bible, the former predominating in Deuteronomy. 
Some have thought there were two adjacent summits, called, in the time of Moses, 
Horeb and Sinai ; and indeed the monks give these names to the northern and 
southern heights of the same ridge, three miles long. But the comparison of all 
the Scripture passages rather shows that Horeb was the general name for the 
group, and Sinai the name of the sacred summit. 

In approaching this elevated region from the north-west, Burckhardt writes, 
"We now approached the central summits of mount Sinai, which we had had in 
view for several days. Abrupt cliffs of granite, from six to eight hundred feet in 
height, whose surface is blackened by the sun, surround the avenues leading to 
the elevated region to which the name of Sinai is specifically applied. These 
cliffs inclose the holy mountain on three sides, leaving the east and north-east 
sides only, towards the gulf of Akaba, more open to the view. At the end of 
three hours, we entered these cliffs by a narrow defile about forty feet in breadth, 
with perpendicular granite rocks on both sides. The ground is covered with 
sand and pebbles, brought down by the torrent which rushes from the upper 
region in the winter time." 

The general approach to Sinai from the same quarter is thus described by Mr. 
Came : " A few hours more, and we got sight of the mountains round Sinai. 
Their appearance was magnificent. When we drew near, and emerged out of a 
deep pass, the scenery was infinitely striking ; and on the right extended a vast 
range of mountains, as far as the eye could reach, from the vicinity of Sinai down 
to Tor, on the gulf of Suez. They were perfectly bare, but of grand and singular 
form. We had hoped to reach the convent by daylight ; but the moon had risen 
some time when we entered the mouth of a narrow pass, where our conductors 
advised us to dismount. A gentle yet perpetual ascent led on, mile after mile, up 
this mournful valley, whose aspect was terrific, yet ever varying. It was not 
above two hundred yards in width, and the mountains rose to an immense height 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC. 105 

the country of Jethro. It still furnishes a scanty pasture, and its val- 
leys were probably better watered then than now. As Moses led his 
flock to its inmost recesses (on its west side) he came to a mountain, 
which was even then called the " Mount of God," from its sanctity 
among the Arabs, "even Horeb." He saw one of the dwarf acacias 
(Seneh), the characteristic vegetation of the desert, wrapt in a flame 
beneath which the dry branches would soon have crackled and con- 
sumed, had it been a natural fire ; but " behold the bush burned with 
fire and the bush was not consumed." 

on each side. The road wound at their feet along the edge of a precipice, and 
amid masses of rock that had fallen from above. It was a toilsome path, gene- 
rally over stones placed like steps, probably by the Arabs ; and the moonlight was 
of little service to us in this deep valley, as it only rested on the frowning sum- 
mits above. Where is Mount Sinai ? was the inquiry of every one. The Arabs 
pointed before to Jebel Musa, the mount of Moses, as it is called ; but we could 
not distinguish it. Again and again point after point was turned, and we saw 
but the same stern scenery. But what had the beauty and softness of nature to 
do here ? Mount Sinai required an approach like this, where all seemed to pro- 
claim the land of Miracles, and to have been visited by the terrors of the Lord. 
The scenes, as you gazed around, had an unearthly character, suited to the sound 
of the fearful trumpet that was once heard there. We entered at last on the more 
open valley, about half a mile wide, and drew near this famous mountain." 

The elevated valley or plain Er-Rahah, here and above referred to, is now 
generally believed to be the place where the Hebrews assembled to witness the 
giving of the law. It is two miles long from north-west to south-east, and on an 
average half a mile wide. The square mile thus afforded is nearly doubled by 
those portions of side valleys, particularly Esh-Sheikh towards the north-north- 
east, from which the summit Ras-sufsafeh can be seen. This summit, which Dr. 
Robinson takes to be the true Sinai, rises abruptly on the south side of the plain 
some fifteen hundred feet. It is the termination of a ridge running three miles 
south-east, the southern and highest portion of which is called by the Arabs Jabel 
Musa, or Moses' Mount. Separated from this ridge by deep and steep ravines, 
are two parallel ridges, of which the eastern is called the Mountain of the Cross, 
and the western Jebel Humr. The convent of St. Catharine lies in the ravine 
east of the true Sinai ; while Mount Catharine is the south peak of the western 
ridge, lying south-west of Jabel Musa, and rising more than one thousand feet 
higher. From the convent, Dr. Robinson ascended the central and sacred moun- 
tain, and the steep peak Ras-sufsafeh. " The extreme difficulty," he says, "and 
even danger of the ascent was well rewarded by the prospect that now opened 
before us. The whole plain of Er-Rahah lay spread out beneath our feet ; while 
the wady Esh-Sheikh on the right and a recess on the left, both connected with 
and opening broadly from Er-Rahah, presented an area which serves nearly to 
double that of the plain. Our conviction was strengthened that here, or on some 
one of the adjacent cliffs, was the spot where the Lord descended in fire and pro- 
claimed the law. Here lay the plain where the whole congregation might be as- 
sembled ; here was the mount which might be approached and touched ; and here 
the mountain brow where alone the lightnings and the thick cloud would be visi- 
ble, and the thunders and the voice of the trump be heard, when the Lord caino 



10G HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Desiring to obtain a better view of this wonderful sight, Moses 
drew near, when he was startled by a voice from the midst of the 
bush calling to him to remove his sandals, as the place upon which he 
stood was holy ground. Trembling he obeyed, and the " Angel Je- 
hovah/' speaking from the burning bush, announced himself as the 
God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and declared to Moses 
that he had heard the cries of Israel under the tyranny of the Egyp- 
tians, and was come down to deliver them and lead them up out of 
Egypt. He commanded Moses to become his messenger to the King 
of Egypt, and the leader of his people. Moses protested his unwor- 
thiness to undertake so great a mission, but was assured that Jehovah 
would be with him until he should fulfil his charge by bringing the 
people out of Egypt to worship in that mountain. Another difficulty 
presented itself to the mind of Moses. The people had become so 
sunk in the idolatrous worship of the Egyptians that they would not 
know who was " the God of their fathers." As the heathen deities 
had each a proper name to distinguish them, the Hebrews would ex- 
pect " the God of their fathers " to have his own distinctive appellation. 

down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. We gave ourselves up to 
the impressions of the awful scene ; and read with a feeling which will never he 
forgotten the sublime account of the transaction and the commandments there 
promulgated, in the original words as recorded by the great Hebrew legislator." 

The plain Er-Rahah is supposed to have been reached by the Hebrews from 
the shore of the Red Sea, south of the desert of Sin, by a series of wadys or broad 
ravines winding up among the mountains in an easterly direction, chiefly wady 
Feiran and wady Esh-Sheikh. The former commences near the Red Sea, and 
opens into the latter, which making a circuit to the north of Sinai, enters the 
plain at its foot from the north-north-east. For several miles from its termina- 
tion here, this valley is half a mile wide. By the same northern entrance most 
travellers have approached the sacred mountain. Its south side is less known. 
To the spectator on Jebel Musa, it presents no trace of any plain, valley, or level 
ground to be compared with that on the north ; yet some writers maintain that 
the Hebrews received the law at the southern foot of Sinai. 

In many of the western Sinaite valleys, and most of all in El-Mukatteb, which 
enters wady Feiran from the north-west, the more accessible parts of the rocky 
sides are covered by thousands of inscriptions, usually short, and rudely carved 
in spots where travellers would naturally stop to rest at noon ; frequently accom- 
panied by a cross, and mingled with representations of animals. The inscriptions 
are in an unknown character, but were at first ascribed to the ancient Israelites 
on their way from Egypt to Sinai ; and afterwards to Christian pilgrims of the 
fourth century. Recently, however, many of them have been deciphered by 
Prof. Beer of Leipzig, who regards them as the only known remains of the lan- 
guage and characters once peculiar to the Nabathoeans of Arabia Petrsea. Those 
thus far deciphered are simply proper names, neither Jewish nor Christian, pre- 
ceded by some such w.ords as "peace," "blessed," "in memory of 1 — Bible 
Dictionary. 




Ph 

CO 



H 



103 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



Therefore Moses urged, " When they shall say unto me, What is his 
name ? what shall I say unto them ?" Thereupon it pleased God to 
reveal to Moses the name by which the God of the Hebrews has ever 
since been known. Jehovah, the self-existent and eternally the 
same; — He that is, and was, and ever icill be what He is; — "I All 
that I am ! What that is, I have written on the consciousness of 
man ; I have revealed it by word and act to your fathers ; and I ever 
will be to my people what I was to them ;" for He repeats this char- 
acter once more, and adds, " This is my name forever, and this is im- 
memorial unto all generations." 
God then revealed minutely his plan of deliverance. Moses was di- 
gs =^ rected to go to the el- 
ders of Israel and re- 
peat to them the rev- 
elation that had been 
made to him. God 
declared to him that 
the elders would be- 
lieve his message, 
and bade him go 
with them to the 
court of Pharaoh and 
demand from that 
monarch leave for 
all Israel to go three 
days' journey into 
the wilderness to 
sacrifice to Jehovah. 
He told him that 
Pharaoh would re- 
fuse, and revealed to 
him the signs and wonders by which He would compel the heathen 
king to consent to the scheme, and finally ordered Moses to instruct 
his people to despoil the Egyptians of their jewels when they left the 
land. 

In order to remove the doubts which Moses entertained concerning 
his reception by the people, God added two signs ; the hand made 
leprous and cured again, and the rod changed to a serpent and restored 
to its former shape. These signs were worked on the spot, and each 
had its significance. The leprous hand and its cure indicated the 
power by which he should deliver the people whom the Egyptians re- 




AXCIEXT STATUES OF MEMXOX, IX THE PLATX OF 

THEBES. 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC. 109 

garded as lepers ; and the transformation of the shepherd's staff into a 
serpent, the Egyptian symbol for the evil spirit (Typhon), and then 
back again into the " rod of Moses" and " of God," was emblematic of 
the power which was to be committed to him as the leader of the peo- 
ple. This " potent rod" was to be the sceptre of his rule as God's 
mouth-piece, and the instrument of the miracles which helped and 
guided the people, and which confounded and destroyed their enemies. 
To these signs was added a third, the power to turn the waters of the 
Nile into blood. 

Moses was staggered by the greatness of his mission, and 
urged his want of eloquence, which seems to have amounted 
to an impediment of speech, a sorry qualification for an ambassador to 
a hostile king. God assured him that He who made man's mouth and 
the dumb and the deaf, the seeing and the blind, would be with him 
and teach him what to say; but in spite of this assurance Moses 
pleaded that the mission might be confided to some other person. Then 
did God in anger punish his reluctance, though in mercy he met his 
objections, by giving a share of the honor, which might have been his 
alone, to his brother Aaron, a man who could speak well. But yet 
the word was not to be Aaron's own. He was to be the mouth of 
Moses ; and Moses was to be to him as God, the direct channel of di- 
vine revelation. The rod of power became " Aaron's rod," though 
the power itself was put forth by the word of Moses. The two great 
functions conferred by the divine mission were divided ; Moses became 
the prophet, and Aaron the priest ; and the whole arrangement exhibits 
the great principle of mediation. 

Returning to his father-in-law's abode, Moses received his permis- 
sion to return to his brethren in Egypt, and, being informed by God 
that the time had come for his departure, and that the men who had 
sought his life were dead, he set out at once. His wife and two sons 
accompanied him, riding upon asses. They stopped on their way at 
an inn or caravanserai, and here Moses was threatened with death by 
Jehovah, because he had left his youngest son uncircumcised ; and Zip- 
porah, understanding this, and perceiving that her husband was so 
smitten as to be himself incapable of executing the act of obedience, 
took a sharp flint, and herself performed the operation. She was, 
however, so much annoyed by this occurrence, that she returned with 
her two sons to her father. By this act of circumcision the entire 
family of Moses, hitherto regarded as Arabian, received the seal of the 
covenant. 

As the future deliverer of Israel advanced towards Egypt, Aaron 




PORTICO OF AN EGYPTIAN TEMPLE. 



110 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC. Ill 

received the divine command to go forth and meet his brother in the 
wilderness. Their meeting took place on the very spot where Jehovah 
had appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and upon this spot Moses 
related to Aaron all that he had seen and heard there. His mission 
to Pharaoh was summed up in the statement : — that God claimed the 
liberty of Israel as his first born son ; and if Pharaoh refused to let 
him go, he would slay his first born. To this last infliction all the 
plagues of Egypt were but preludes. 

The brothers then directed their steps toward the land of Goshen, 
and upon arriving there, summoned the elders of Israel to meet them. 
" And Aaron spake all the words which Jehovah had spoken to Moses, 
and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed ; 
and when they heard that Jehovah had visited the children of Israel, 
and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed the head 
and worshipped." We shall soon see that they were far from being 
finally weaned from the false religion of Egypt. 

Having secured the adherence of the Israelites, Moses and Aaron 
at once repaired to the court of the king, and upon being admitted to 
his presence, demanded, in the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel, 
leave for His people to hold a feast to Him in the wilderness. This 
was the extent of the first demand ; as it had been the extent of what 
God had enjoined on Moses : — " Ye shall serve God in this mountain." 
It was to be a solemn festival, shared in by all the people, who, as a 
nomad race, would of course travel with their flocks and herds. When 
they reached the sacred mount, they would be at the disposal of their 
God and Father, to lead them back or forward as he pleased ; and he 
claimed of Pharaoh that they should be placed at his disposal, without 
telling him of their farther destination, which had long since been re- 
vealed to Abraham, and lately made known to Moses. 

Pharaoh treated the message with contempt. He not only refused 
to acknowledge Jehovah as a God, but ordered Moses and Aaron 
back to their burdens. We may suppose that although Moses' per- 
sonal enemies at the court were dead, he was still sufficiently well 
known there for pleasure to be taken in his humiliation. The king 
now ordered the burdens of the Hebrews to be increased. The 
Egyptian taskmasters, whose business it was to regulate the amount 
of their work, were bidden to refuse them the chopped straw which 
was necessary to bind the friable earth into bricks, and which had 
hitherto been served out to them. The people were compelled to 
search the fields for stubble to supply its place, and thus lost their 
time ; but still the full tale of bricks was demanded of them, and 



112 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

when they could no longer supply it the Hebrew overseers, who were 
under the Egyptian taskmasters, were bastinadoed. They appealed 
to Pharaoh for redress, but he refused to listen to them, and they 
turned upon Moses and Aaron, whom they accused of making them 
odious to the king. 

In great distress Moses complained to God that his mission had 
only increased the people's misery without effecting their deliverance. 
God replied to him, assuring him that the time was close at hand. 
With a plainer revelation of his great name, Jehovah renewed his 
ancient covenant, to bring them into the promised land. Though the 
people were too heart-broken to accept the consolation, Jehovah gave 
Moses and Aaron (whose descent from Levi is now formally set forth) 
their final charge to Pharaoh; once more warning them of the king's 
resistance, which should only give occasion for more signal proofs of 
God's power, that the Egyptians might know Jehovah. 

Moses and Aaron again sought the presence of Pharaoh, and, in 
order to move him, resorted to the miracles provided for them by 

'"God. Aaron's rod was changed to a serpent before the king. This 
miracle was imitated by the magicians of Egypt, headed by Jannes 
and Jambres, whose names are preserved by the learned disciple 
Gamaliel (2 Timothy iii. 8), whose rods also became serpents. But 
these serpents were devoured by Aaron's serpent. We say they 
imitated the miracle of Moses and Aaron, to express at once the con- 
viction that their apparent success was an imposture. There is no 
certain evidence, either in the principles of philosophy or in the ex- 
perience of facts, for the exercise of supernatural power by the aid of 
evil spirits. Scripture not only does not sanction such an opinion, 

^but forbids its belief. It regards magicians with abhorrence; brands 
their miracles as "lying wonders;" and makes the teaching of false 
doctrine a test of the false pretence of supernatural power. And, 
when we pass from principles to facts, there is not a well-authenticated 
case of an apparent miracle, wrought by others than the Scripture 
witnesses for God, we do not say which cannot be exposed (for many 
a known deception escapes detection as to its mode), but there is not 
one which excludes the possibility of imposture and leaves no room 
for doubt. The common error is to attempt to explain every thing, 
instead of first testing the evidence as a whole, and rejecting it as a 
whole when it breaks down on critical points. In the case of the 
Egyptian magicians, we may not be able to explain all their imita- 
tions (though very probable explanations have been suggested), but 
we have a perfectly satisfactory test of their imposture in the limit at 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC. 113 

which their power ceased. Their own exclamation, "this is the 
finger of God," involves the confession that they had been aided by 
no divine power, not even by their own supposed deities. 

We do not read of any attempt on the part of Moses to expose their 
imposture. In the first miracle, he was content with the superior 
power shown by Aaron's serpent devouring theirs ; and the rest he 
answered by still greater miracles, till he came to one which they 
could not imitate, and then their confession left no need for refutation. 
The same argument may suffice for us ; but some minds will still ask 
for explanation. The power shown by serpent-charmers makes it 
easy to suppose that the magicians were provided with serpents 
stiffened into the appearance of wands at the safe distance kept round 
the king's throne. To give water, or a fluid looking like it, the ap- 
pearance of blood, is one of the easiest experiments of chemistry ; and, 
after the real miracle had been performed on the river and all its 
branches, the imitation must necessarily have been on a small scale. 
To seem to produce frogs is a common conjuror's trick, presenting lit- 
tle difficulty when the land already swarmed with them; and we do 
not read that the magicians showed the power of removing them or 
any of the other plagues, which would have been a decisive triumph 
over the prophet who called for and the God who sent them. In 
short, our wonder is more excited by their imitations ceasing when 
they did, than by their appearance of success in these three cases. 

The first miracle, that of the rod, was a display of God's 
power given to his prophet, for the conviction of Pharaoh, 
and the Egyptians ; but when their hearts were hardened against con- 
viction, it became needful to teach them by suffering. The miracles 
that followed were judgments, on the king, the people, and their gods, 
forming the Ten Plagues of Egypt. 

I. The Plague of Blood. — After a warning to Pharaoh, Aaron, at 
the word of Moses, waved his rod over the Nile, and the river was 
turned into blood, with all its canals and reservoirs, and every vessel 
of water drawn from them ; the fish died, and the river stank. The, 
pride of the Egyptians in their river for its wholesome water is well 
known, and it was the source of all fertility. But besides this, it was 
honored as a god, and so were some species of its fish (as the Oxi/rhi/n- 
chus) ; and to smite "the sacred salubrious Nile," was to smite Egypt 
at its heart. There was, however, mercy mingled with the judgment, 
for the Egyptians obtained water by digging wells. The miracle 
lasted for seven days ; but, as it was imitated by the magicians, it pro- 
duced no impression on Pharaoh. 



114 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

II. The Plague of Frogs. — These creatures are always so numer- 
ous in Egypt as to be annoying ; but, at the appointed signal, they 
came up from their natural haunts, and swarmed in countless num- 
bers, " even in the chambers of their kings," and denied the very 
ovens and kneading-troughs. Here too it was an object of their 
reverence that was made their scourge, for the frog was one of the 
sacred animals. From this plague there was no escape ; and though 
the magicians imitated it, Pharaoh was fain to seek relief through the 
prayer of Moses, and by promising to let the people go. " Glory 
over me," said Moses : he waived all personal honor that the contest 
might bring him, and allowed Pharaoh to fix the time for the re- 
moval of the plague. The king named the morrow ; and then, by the 
prayer of Moses, the frogs died where they were, a far more striking 
confirmation of the miracle than if they had retired to their haunts. 
Pharaoh abused the respite, and even while his land stank with the 
carcasses of the frogs, he refused to keep his promise. 

III. The Plague of Lice. — From the waters and marshes, the 
power of God passed on to the dry land, which was smitten by the 
rod, and its very dust seemed turned into minute noxious insects, so 
thickly did they swarm on man and beast, or rather " in " them. The 
scrupulous cleanliness of the Egyptians would add intolerably to the 
bodily distress of this plague, by which also they again incurred reli- 
gious defilement. As to the species of the vermin there seems no 
reason to disturb the authorized translation of the word. 

In this case we read that " the magicians did so with their enchant- 
ments, to bring forth lice, but they could not." They struck the 
ground, as Aaron did, and repeated their own incantations, but it was 
without effect. They confessed the hand of God ; but Pharaoh was 
still hardened. 

IV. The Plague of Flies or Beetles. — After the river and the land, 
the air was smitten, being filled with winged insects, which swarmed 
in the houses and devoured the land, but Goshen was exempted from 
the plague. The word translated " swarms of flies " most probably 
denotes the great Egyptian beetle (Scarabams saccr), which is con- 
stantly represented in their sculptures. Besides the annoying and 
destructive habits of its tribe, it was an object of worship, and thus 
the Egyptians were again scourged by their own superstitions. 

Pharaoh now gave permission for the Israelites to sacrifice to their 
God in the land ; but Moses replied that the Egyptians would stone 
them if they sacrificed the creatures they worshipped, a striking exam- 
ple, thus early, of the tendency to religious riots which has marked 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC. 115 

all the successive populations of Egypt.. He repeated the demand to 
go three days' journey into the wilderness, there to place themselves 
at God's disposal. Pharaoh now yielded ; but as soon as the plague 
was removed at the prayer of Moses, he " hardened his heart at this 
time also, neither would he let the people go." 

V. The Plague of the Murrain of Beasts. — Still coming closer and 
closer to the Egyptians, God sent a disease upon the cattle, which 
were not only their property, but their deities. At the precise time 
of which Moses forewarned Pharaoh, all the cattle of the Egyptians 
were smitten with a murrain and died, but not one of the cattle of the 
Israelites suffered. Still the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he 
did not let the people go. 

VI. The Plague of Boils and Blains. — From the cattle, the hand 
of God was extended to their own persons. Moses and Aaron were 
commanded to take ashes of the furnace, and to " sprinkle it toward 
the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh." It was to become "small 
dust " throughout Egypt, and " be a boil breaking forth [with] blains 
upon man, and upon beast." This accordingly came to pass. The 
plague seems to have been the black leprosy, a fearful kind of 
elephantiasis, which was long remembered as " the blotch of Egypt." 
This also was a terrible infliction on their religious purity, and its 
severity prevented the magicians from appearing in the presence of 
Moses. Still Pharaoh's heart was hardened, as Jehovah had said to 
Moses. 

VII. The Plague of Hail. — The first six plagues had been at- 
tended with much suffering and humiliation, and some loss ; but they 
had not yet touched the lives of the Egyptians, or their means of 
subsistence. But now a solemn message was sent to Pharaoh and his 
people, that they should be smitten with pestilence and cut off from 
the earth. First of all, they were threatened with a storm of hail. 
" Behold to-morrow, about this time, I will cause it to rain a very 
grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation 
thereof even until now." Pharaoh was then told to collect his cattle 
and men into shelter, for that every thing should die upon which the 
hail descended. Some of the king's servants heeded the warning 
now given, and brought in their cattle from the field. On the rest 
there burst a terrific storm of hail, thunder, and "fire running along 
upon the ground," such as had never been seen in Egypt. Men and 
beasts were killed, plants were destroyed, and vines, fi«;'s, and other 
trees broken to pieces. Of the crops, the barley and flax which were 
fully formed were destroyed, but the wheat and rye (or spelt) were 



-= 



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- 

c 
- 

> 




EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC. 



lit 




THE LOCUST. 

spared, for they were not yet grown up ; mercy was still mingled 
with the judgment. This distinction, which could only have been 
made by one familiar with Egypt, marks the season of the events. 
Barley, one of the most important crops, alike in ancient and modern 
Egypt, comes to maturity in March, and flax at the same time ; while 
wheat and spelt are ripe in April. Both harvests are a month or six 
weeks earlier than in Palestine. 

Pharaoh, more moved than he had yet been, renewed his prayers 
and promises ; and Moses, without concealing his knowledge of the 
result, consented to prove to him once more that "the earth is 
Jehovah's." The storm ceased at his prayer, and Pharaoh only 
hardened his heart the more. 

VIII. The Plague of Locusts. — The herbage which the storm 

had spared was now given up to a terrible destroyer. After a fresh 

warning, 

" The potent rod 
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, 
Waved round her coasts, called up a pitchy cloud 
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, 
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung 
Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile." 

Approaching thus, the swarm alights upon fields green with the 
young blades of corn ; its surface is blackened with their bodies, and 
in a few minutes it is left black, for the soil is as bare as if burnt 
with fire. Whatever leaves and fruit the hail had left on the trees 
were likewise devoured ; and the houses swarmed with the hideous 



118 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

destroyers. No plague could have been more impressive in the East, 
where the ravages of locusts are so dreadful, that they are chosen as 
the fit symbol of a destroying conqueror. The very threat had urged 
Pharaoh's courtiers to remonstrance, and he had offered to let the 
men only depart, but he had refused to yield more, and had driven 
Moses and Aaron from his presence. Now he recalled them in haste, 
and asked them to forgive his sin " only this once," and to entreat 
God to take away " this death only." A strong west wind removed 
the locusts as an east wind had brought them ; but their removal left 
his heart harder than ever. 

IX.-X. The Plague of Darkness and the Prediction of the Death 
of the First-born. — The last plague but one was a fearful prelude to 
the last. For three days there was thick darkness over the sunny 
land of Egypt, " even darkness which might be felt ;" while " all the 
children of Israel had light in their dwellings." Unable to see each 
other, or to move about, the Egyptians had still this one last oppor- 
tunity of repentance ; but Pharaoh would only let the people go if 
they left their flocks and herds behind. With threats he forbade 
Moses to see his face again ; and Moses sealed this rejection of the 
day of grace with the words : — " Thou hast spoken well, I will see 
thy face again no more." 

The contest was now over. The cup of the wickedness of Pharaoh 
and the Egyptians, who had oppressed the children of God and 
defied the power of the Great King of kings, was full. Their doom 
had gone forth, they had rejected the warnings given them, and now 
God made ready to slay their first-born sons. For the remainder 
of the third day of darkness they sat awaiting the terrible stroke 
which was to fall on them at midnight. Meanwhile there was light 
in all the land of Goshen, and aided by this light the Israelites were 
preparing for the memorable night in the way prescribed by God. 
Now was instituted the great observance of the Mosaical dispensa- 
tion, the Feast of the Passover. 

On the day, reckoned from sunset to sunset, in the 
night of which the first-born of Egypt were slain and the 
Israelites departed, the people, by the express command of God, 
instituted a solemn feast, which they were commanded to keep as a 
perpetual memorial. This day was the fourteenth of the Jewish 
month Nisan or Abib (March to April), which began about the time 
of the vernal equinox. This month was now made the first month 
of the ecclesiastical year, and in all future times this day was to be 
the great day of the feast when the Pascal supper was to be eaten. 



EGYPTIAN BONDAGE, ETC 



119 



The preparation for the celebration of the first passover had already 
been made by the command of God. On the tenth day of the month 
each household had chosen a yearling lamb (or kid, for either might 
be used), without blemish. This " Paschal Lamb " was set apart till 
the evening which began the fourteenth day, and was killed as a 
sacrifice at that moment in every family in Israel. But before it was 
eaten, its blood was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop on the lintel 
and doorposts of the house: the divinely appointed sign, that 
Jehovah might pass over that house, when he passed through the 
land to destroy the Egyptians. Thus guarded, and forbidden to go 
out of doors till the morning, the families of Israel ate the lamb, 
roasted and not boiled, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 
The bones were not suffered to be broken, but they must be consumed 
by fire in the morning, with any of the flesh that was left uneaten. 
The people were to eat in haste,, thoroughly equipped for their coming- 
journey. For seven 
days after the feast, 
from the fourteenth to 
the twenty-first, they 
were to eat only un- 
leavened bread, and 
no leaven was to be 
found in their houses 
under penalty of death. 
The fourteenth and 
twenty-first were to 

be kept with a holy convocation and Sabbatic rest. The Passover 
was to be kept to Jehovah throughout all their generations, " a feast 
by an ordinance forever." No stranger might share the feast unless 
he were first circumcised ; but strangers were bound to observe the 
days of unleavened bread. To mark more solemnly the perpetual 
nature and vast importance of the feast, fathers were specially en- 
joined to instruct their children in its meaning through all future 
time. 

The people did all that Moses commanded them, the Passover was 
eaten with the required solemnity, and each family set the mark of 
blood on the lintel and doorposts of its house. As the "Paschal 
Lamb" was killed at sunset, we may suppose that the Israelites had 
finished the solemn- supper, and were awaiting, in awful suspense, the 
next great event, when the midnight cry of anguish arose through all 
the land of Egypt. At that moment Jehovah slew the first born in 




UNLEAVENED BREAD. 



120 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

every house, from the king to the captive ; and by smiting also all the 
first born of cattle, he " executed judgment on all the gods of Egypt." 
The hardened heart of Pharaoh was broken by the 
B * c ' ' stroke; and all his people joined with him to hurry the 
Israelites away. The Egyptians willingly gave them the jewels of 
silver and gold and the raiment, which they asked for by the com- 
mand of Moses ; and so " they spoiled the Egyptians." They had 
not even time to prepare food, and only took the dough before it was 
leavened, in their kneading-troughs bound up in their clothes upon 
their shoulders, and baked unleavened cakes at their first halt. But, 
amid all this haste, some military order of march was preserved, and 
Moses forgot not to carry away the bones of Joseph. The host num- 
bered 600,000 men on foot, besides children, from which the total of 
souls is estimated at not less than 2,500,000.* But they were accom- 
panied by " a mixed multitude," or great rabble, composed probably 
of Egyptians of the lowest caste, who proved a source of disorder. 
Their march was guided by Jehovah himself, who, from its com- 
mencement to their entrance into Canaan, displayed his banner, the 
SheJcinah, in their van : — " Jehovah went before them by day in a 
pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way ; and by night in a pillar of 
fire, to give them light ; to go by day and night." 

This Exodus, or departure of the Israelites from Egypt, closed the 
430 years of their pilgrimage, which began from the call of Abram 
out of Ur of the Chaldees. 

* These numbers have given rise to great controversy ; but the reader should 
compare De Quincey's graphic account (in the fourth volume of his works) of the 
" Revolt of the Tartars ; or, Flight of the Kalmuck Khan and his People from the 
Russian Territories to the Frontiers of China." On one day, the 5th of January, 
1771, more than 400,000 Tartars commenced this Exodus. " It was a religious 
exodus, authorized by an oracle venerated throughout many nations of Asia — an 
exodus, therefore, in so far resembling the great scriptural Exodus of the Israel- 
ites, under Moses and Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar distinction of carry- 
ing along with them their entire families, women, children, slaves, their herds of 
cattle and of sheep, their horses and their camels." 



MARCH FROM EGYPT TO SINAI. 1*1 




CHAPTER IX. 

THE MARCH FEOM EGYPT TO SINAI. 

[a. m. 2513-2514. B. c. 1491-1490.] 

HE whole journey of the Israelites from Egypt into the land 
of promise may be divided into three distinct portions: — 

I. The March out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, there to wor- 
ship Jehovah, as he had said to Moses. This occupied six 
weeks, making, with the fourteen days before the Passover, 
two months; and they were encamped before Sinai, receiving the 
divine laws, for the remaining ten months of the first ecclesiastical 
year. The tabernacle was set up on the first day of the 
first month (Abib) of the second year (about April 1, 
1490 B. c.) ; and its dedication occupied that month. On the first 
day of the second month, Moses began to number the people, and 
their encampment was broken up on the twentieth day of the second 
month of the second year, about May 20, 1490 B. c. 

II. The March from Sinai to the borders of Canaan, whence they 
were turned back for their refusal to enter the land. This distance, 
commonly eleven days' journey, was divided by three chief halts. 
The first stage occupied three days, followed by a halt of at least 
a month. The next halt was for a week at least. After the third 
journey, there was a period of forty days, during which the spies 
were searching the land ; and they returned with ripe grapes and 
other fruits. All these indications bring us to the season of the Feast 
of Tabernacles, just six months after the Passover (Oct. 1490 B. a). 

III. The Wandering in the Wilderness, and Entrance into Canaan. 
This is often vaguely spoken of as a period of forty years, but, in the 
proper sense, the wanderings occupied thirty-seven and a half years. 
The people came again to Kadesh, whence they had been turned back, 
in the first month of the fortieth year. Advancing thence, they over- 
threw the kings Sihon and Og, and spoiled the Midianites; and 
reached the plains of Moab, on the east of Jordan, opposite to Jericho, 
by the end of the tenth month, early in January, 1451 B. c. The 
rest of that year was occupied by the final exhortation and death of 
Moses. We are not told the exact date of the passage of the Jordan ; 
but the harvest-time identifies it with the season of the Passover ; and 



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122 



MARCH FROM EGYPT TO SINAI. 123 

thus the cycle of forty years is completed, from the beginning of Abib, 
1491, to the same date of 1451. The following is a tabulated state- 
ment of the divisions of the forty years. 

Tears. Months. Days. 

In Egypt before the Passover. 14 

From Egypt to Sinai 1 16 

Encampment at Sinai 11 20 

March to Kadesh (about) 4 10 

"Wanderings in Wilderness 37 6 

March from Kadesh to the plains of Moab 10 

Encampment there to the passage of the Jordan 2 

Total 40 

Had the object been to lead them by the shortest route out of Egypt 
into Canaan, it might have been accomplished in a few days' journey 
along the shore of the Mediterranean. But they were not thus to 
evade the moral discipline of the wilderness. Besides that their first 
destination was fixed for " the mount of God," they were quite unpre- 
pared to meet the armies of the Philistines, and so " God led the people 
about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea." 

At the very outset, we are met by a great difficulty about their 
point of departure. It is a simple and attractive theory which carries 
them straight along the valley, now called the Wady-et-Tih, running 
eastward from the fork of the Delta to the Red Sea, between two 
parallel offshoots of the hills which skirt the Nile, and of which the 
northern range bears the name of Jebel-Atakah (the mountain of de- 
liverance). But this route is too simple : it could hardly fill up three 
days, even for such a host, and it was inconsistent with the final 
movements by which they became " entangled in the land," for they 
would have been so already, and they would have had no " turning " 
to make to encamp by the sea. Nor can this view be reconciled with 
their probable starting point. It is evident that they were gathered 
together in Goshen before their departure ; and they are expressly said 
to have started from Rameses. Now whether Rameses be the city 
named in Exodus i. 11, or the district so called in Genesis xlvii. 11, 
it must be sought along the east branch of the Nile lower down than 
Heliopolis. 

From this starting-point they made two days' journey before reach- 
ing the edge of the wilderness at Etham. Thence, making a turn, 
which can only have been southward, they reached the Red Sea in one 
day's journey. There seems to be only one route that satisfies these 
conditions, that namely by the Wady-et-Tumeylat, through which ran 
the ancient canal ascribed to the Pharaohs. The mound called El-Ab- 
baseyeh in that valley offers a probable site for Rameses; and the 



124 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS. 



distance from it to the head of the Red Sea, about thirty miles in a 
direct line, answers very well to the three-days' journey of the vast, 
mixed, and encumbered troop, especially when an allowance is made 
for the deviation already mentioned. As to the further details, the 
name of the first resting-place, Succoth, affords no help, as it only 
means booths. Etham, the second stage, being on the edge of the 
wilderness, may very well correspond to Seba Biar (the Seven Wells), 
which occupies such a position, about three miles from the western 
side of the ancient head of the Gulf of Suez, which extended much 
farther to the north than it does now. Thence their natural route 
into the Peninsula of Sinai would have been round the head of the 
gulf, but, by the express command of God, " they turned and en- 
camped before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against 
Baalzephon " — localities evidently on the west side of the Gulf of 
Suez. 

This incomprehensible movement led Pharaoh to exclaim, " They 
are entangled in the wilderness, the sea hath shut them in." And 
well might he say so, if their position was enclosed between the sea on 
their east, the Jebel-Atakah, which borders the north side of the Wady- 
et-Tih, on their south and west, and the wilderness in their rear, with 
the pursuing army pressing on to cut off their retreat. Add to this 
that the sea, where they encamped by it, must have been shallow 



MARCH FROM EGYPT TO SINAI. 



125 



enough for its bed to be laid bare by the " strong east wind," narrow 
enough for the host to pass over in a single night, and yet broad 
enough to receive the whole army of Pharaoh ; and lastly, that the 
opposite bank must not be rocky or precipitous. These conditions 
seem to exclude any place in the mouth of the Wady-et-Tih, south of 
Jebel-Atakah, as well as the traditional line of passage opposite Ayun 
Musa (the Spring of Moses), and to restrict the place of passage to 
the neighborhood of Suez. 

The great miracle itself, by which a way was cloven for the people 
through the sea, was a proof to them, to the Egyptians, and to all the 
neighboring nations, that the hand of Jehovah was with them, leading 
them by his own way, and ready to deliver them in every strait 
through all their future course. In this light it is celebrated in that 
sublime hymn of triumph, which furnishes the earliest example of 
responsive choral music. 
In this light it is looked 
back upon by the sacred 
writers in every age, as 
the great miracle which 
inaugurated their history 
as a nation. 

The King of Egypt 
and his servants, with 
hearts hardened even 
against the lesson taught 
by the death of the first 
born, repented of 
letting their slaves depart. With six hundred chosen chariots, and 
all his military array, he pursued and overtook them at Pi-hahiroth. 
The frightened people began to raise the cry, with which they so often 
assailed Moses, " Better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we 
should die in the wilderness." But the way was made clear by faith 
and obedience. " Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of 

Jehovah He shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace," 

was the answer of Moses to the people, while God's word to him was 
that which generally opens a way out of danger and distress : — " Speak 
unto the children of Israel that they go forward" At the signal of 
the uplifted rod of Moses, a strong east wind blew all that night, and 
divided the waters as a wall on the right hand and on the left, while 
the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry land. The 
guiding pillar of fire (with the angel of Jehovah himself) moved from 




THE PILLAR OF FIRE. 



126 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

their van into their rear, casting its beams along their column, but 
creatine: behind them a darkness amid which the host of Pharaoh 
went after them into the bed of the sea. But, at the morning watch, 
Jehovah looked out of the pillar of fire and cloud, and troubled the 
Egyptians. Panic-stricken, they sought to fly ; but their chariot- 
wheels were broken : the host of Israel had now reached the bank : the 
rod of Moses waved again over the gulf: " and the sea returned to his 
strength when the morning appeared ; and the Egyptians fled against 
it ;" but not one of them was left alive. " And the people feared Je- 
hovah, and believed his servant Moses." The waters of the Red Sea 
were thenceforth a moral, as well as a physical gulf between them and 
Egypt. Its passage initiated a new dispensation : " they were all bap- 
tized to 3Ioses in the cloud and in the sea." 

Their route now lay southward down the east side of the Gulf of 
Suez, and at first along the shore. The station of Ayun 3Iusa (the 
Wells of Moses), with its tamarisks and seventeen wells, may have 
served for their gathering after the passage. They marched for three 
days through the wilderness of Shur or Etham, on the southwest 
margin of the great desert of Paran (et-Tih), where they found no 
water. The tract is still proverbial for its storms of wind and sand. 
It is a part of the belt of gravel which surrounds the mountains of the 
peninsula, and is crossed by several wadys, whose sides are fringed 
with tamarisks, acacias, and a few palm-trees. Near one of these, the 
Wady el- Amarah, is a spring called Ain Amdrah, not only in the 
position of Marah, but with the bitter taste which gave it the name. 
The people, tormented with thirst, murmured against Moses, who, at 
the command of God, cast a certain tree into the waters which made 
them sweet. This was the first great trial of their patience ; and God, 
who had healed the waters, promised to deliver them from all the 
diseases of Egypt if they would obey Him, and confirmed the promise 
by the name of " Jehovah the Healer." 

They must have been cheered at reaching the oasis of 
b c 1491. 

Elim, whose tw T elve wells and threescore palm-trees mark 

it as one of the wadys that break the desert ; either the Wady Ghur- 
undel or the Wady TJseit. After passing the Wady Taiyibeh, the route 
descends through a defile on to a beautiful pebbly beach, where Dean 
Stanley places the Encampment by the Red Sea, 'which is men- 
tioned in Numbers next to Elim, but is omitted in Exodus. Here the 
Israelites had their last view of the Red Sea and the shores of Egypt. 
The route now lay inland, and turning off from the Red Sea, they 
entered the Wilderness of Sin (probably the plain of 3Iurkhah), which 




1 Wl'lllf 



128 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

leads up from the shore to the entrance of the mountains of Sinai. 
Another great trial now met them here. Their unleavened bread was 
exhausted, and they began to suffer with hunger. In their distress 
they began to murmur, saying it was better to have died by the flesh- 
pots of Egypt than to perish of hunger in the wilderness. God had 
not forgotten them, however, and was about to teach them that they 
must look to him for their daily bread, which he now rained down 
from heaven upon their camp in the form of manna. This manna 
must be regarded as altogether miraculous, and not in any sense a 
product of nature, since it is entirely different from the natural products 
of the Arabian deserts and other Oriental regions which bear its name, 
but which have not the qualities or use ascribed to the manna of Scrip- 
ture. The manna fell silently in the night with the dew and was 
gathered every morning, and only in quantities sufficient for the daily 
use of the family. On the sixth day a double quantity was gathered 
to last during the Sabbath, on which day no manna was sent. This 
supply continued until the Israelites reached Canaan, and was a type 
of that blessed Bread of Life which came down from Heaven in the 
person of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The rules laid down 
for the gathering of the manna gave occasion for the revival of the 
Sabbath, which had no doubt been neglected in Egypt, though the 
appeal of Moses to the people seems to imply that the law of the Sab- 
bath was not entirely forgotten. 

From this valley others lead up, by a series of steep ascents, into 
the recesses of Sinai ; resembling the beds of rivers, but without water, 
and separated by defiles which sometimes become staircases of rock. 
Such were no doubt the stations of Dophkah and Altjsh, and such 
are the Wadys Shellal and Mukatteb. From the latter the route passes 
into the long and winding Wady Fciran, with its groves of tamarisks 
and palms, overhung by the granite rocks of Mount Serbal, perhaps 
the Horeb of Scripture. This valley answers in every respect to 
Rephidim (the resting-places), the very name of which implies a long 
halt. 

Here the cry for water burst forth into an angry rebellion against 
Moses ; and God vouchsafed a miracle for a permanent supply during 
their abode in the wilderness of Sinai. Moses was commanded to go 
before the people, with the elders of Israel, and to smite the rock in 
Horeb, and water flowed forth out of it. The place was called Massah 
(temptation), and Meribah (chiding or strife), in memory of the re- 
bellion by which the people tempted Jehovah and doubted his presence 
among them. The spring thus opened seems to have formed a brook, 



MARCH FROM EGYPT TO SINAI. 120 

which the Israelites used during their whole sojourn near Sinai. 
Hence the rock is said to have "followed them" by St. Paul, who 
makes it a type of Christ, the source of the spiritual water of life. 

It was in Rephidim that the newly-formecf nation fought 
their first great battle. They were treacherously attacked 
by the Amalekites, the descendants of Eliphaz the son of Esau, who 
ranged over the south of Palestine and all Arabia Petraea, and who 
thus commanded the routes leading out of Egypt into Asia. They 
first made a treacherous assault on the rear of the Israelite column, 
and cut off the infirm and the stragglers. Moses thereupon ordered 
Joshua, whose name now occurs for the first time, to attack Amalek 
with a picked force of Hebrew warriors, and the great battle came off 
in Rephidim. It lasted until sunset, and resulted in the defeat of 
Amalek. During the battle Moses stood on a hill with the rod of 
God outstretched in his hand. Aaron and Hur the husband of Miriam 
stood by him, and held up his arms when they grew weary, for it was 
only while the rod was outstretched that the Israelites prevailed — a 
beautiful lesson to us of the power of prayer. After the victory, Moses 
set up an altar to mark the spot, and called it Jehovah Nissi [Jehovah 
is my banner). For this treacherous attack, the tribe of Amalek was 
henceforth doomed to execration and ultimate extinction. God com- 
manded Moses to record the transaction in a book. 

During the halt at Rephidim, Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, paid a 
visit to the camp, and brought with him the wife and sons of Moses, 
who had been sent back to Midian after the scene at the inn, related 
in the previous chapter. Moses received him with great honor, and 
told him all that the Lord had done for Israel. The priest of 
Midian joyfully acknowledged the God of Israel, and offered sacri- 
fices to his name ; and henceforth there was the closest friendship 
between the Israelites and the Kenites, his descendants. Seeing that 
Moses was overburdened with the administration of justice among the 
people, he advised him to commit those duties to certain chosen men, 
who should be appointed over tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands, 
to each of whom should be confided certain causes, and to reserve to 
himself the most important causes to lay them before God, as mediator 
for the people. Moses put this plan into execution at once, and 
Jethro soon after departed to his own country, leaving Hobab, his 
son, who became the guide of the Israelites from Sinai to the border 
of Canaan. 

The next stage brought the Israelites to the WILDERNESS of Sinai 
on the first day of the third month (Sivan, June), and here they 



130 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



encamped before the mount. The site of their camp has been 
identified, to a high degree of probability, with the Wady-er-Rdhah 
(the enclosed plain) in front of the magnificent cliffs of Bus Sufsafeh. 
The people would reach this point by winding around the Wady- 
esh-Sheykh, the great thoroughfare of the desert, while Moses and the 
elders might mount to it by the steep pass of the Nuhb Hawy. Never 
in the history of the world was such a scene beheld as that plain now 
presented. A whole nation was assembled alone with God. His 
hand had been seen and his voice heard at every step of their history 

for 430 years up to 
this great crisis. He 
had called their pro- 
genitor Abraham from 
his father's house, and 
made with him the 
covenant, which had 
now reached its first 
great fulfilment. He 
had guided the family 
by wondrous ways till 
he brought them down 
to Egypt, where they 
grew into a nation 
under the discipline of 
affliction. Thence he 
had brought them 
forth with a mighty 
hand, and an out- 
stretched arm, proving 
that he was the only 
God, and they the 
people of his choice. 
He had severed them 
from all the nations of the earth, and had divided the very sea, to let 
them pass into this secret shrine of nature, whose awful grandeur 
prepared their minds for the coming revelation. Thus far they only 
knew the token which God had given to Moses, " When thou hast 
brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this 
mountain." They had reached the place, and they waited in awful 
adoration for what was to follow. 

There was a season of preparation before the great appearance of 




MOSES RECEIVING THE TABLES OF THE LAW. 



MARCH FROM EGYPT TO SINAI. 131 

God on Sinai to give the law. First, Moses went up to God, whose 
voice called to him out of the mountain, telling him to remind the 
people of the wonders already wrought for them, and promising that, 
if they would obey God and keej) his covenant, " then shall ye be a 
peculiar treasure unto me above all people (for all the earth is mine), 
and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." 
These words mark the special character assigned to the Israelites, and 
still more to the spiritual Israel. Not that they were to be separated 
from all nations in proud exclusiveness, for their own sake : this was 
the great mistake of their history. But as "all the earth is 
Jehovah's," they were his in a special sense, to bring all nations back 
to him ; kings and priests for others' good, and a holy nation for a 
pattern to all the rest. True, they failed in this great mission ; but 
only for a time : their history is not finished, for it is only the first 
step in that of the spiritual Israel, who are yet to reign as kings and 
priests to God, and to bring all nations to the obedience of Christ. 
Meanwhile the elders and people accepted the covenant, and said, 
"All that Jehovah hath spoken, we will do," and Moses returned 
with their words to Jehovah. 

Moses was next warned of the coming appearance of 
God in a thick cloud, to speak to him before all the 
people, that they might believe him forever. He was commanded to 
purify the people against the third day, and to set bounds round the 
mount, forbidding man or beast to touch it, under penalty of death, 
and these preparations occupied the next day. 

The same reverence that was then enjoined forbids the vain attempt 
to describe the scene, which is related in the simple but sublime 
words of Moses, and recounted in the noblest strains of poetry, and 
whose terrors, which made even Moses himself to fear and quake, are 
most beautifully contrasted with the milder glories of the spiritual 
Sion. From amid the darkness, and above the trumpet's sound, 
God's voice was heard calling Moses up into the mount, to bid him 
charge the people lest they should break the bounds to gaze on God, 
and to prepare the elders to come up with him and Aaron when God 
should call them. Moses returned to the people, and repeated these 
injunctions. 

Then followed the greatest event of the Old Covenant, The voice 
of God himself gave forth the law by which his people were to live; 
the Ten Commandments, on which all other laws were to be founded, 
and which were themselves summed up under the Old Covenant as 
well as the New, in two great principles: — "Thou shalt love the 



132 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and strength, 
and thy neighbor as thyself." 

The Ten Commandments were the only part of the law given by 
the voice of God to the assembled people : " He added no more ;" 
and they alune were afterward written on the two tables of stone. 
The form of the revelation was more than they could bear ; and they 
prayed Moses that he would speak to them in the place of God, lest 
they should die. God approved their words, and Moses was invested 
with the office of Mediator, the type of " the Prophet raised up like 
him," the " one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ 
Jesus." He drew near to the thick darkness where God was, while 
the people stood aloof; and he received a series of precepts, which 
stand apart from the laws afterward delivered, as a practical inter- 
pretation of the Ten Commandments. 

These precepts were concluded by promises relating to the people's 
future course. Their destination was clearly stated, their bounds 
assigned, the conquest assured to them by a gradual exertion of the 
power of God, the blessings of life promised if they served God, and 
a special warning given against idolatry. Above all, the angel Je- 
hovah, who had already guided them out of Egypt, was still 
to be their guide to keep them in the way, and to bring them 
to the place appointed for them, and their captain to fight against 
their enemies. But if provoked and disobeyed, He would be a 
terror to themselves, "for my name is in Him" Thus the whole 
promise is crowned with Christ. For this angel is identified 
with God's own presence. He appeared to Joshua as Jehovah, the 
captain of the Lord's host, that is, the chief of the angels, the arch- 
angel, a title which belongs only to the Son of God, the prince 
Michael. In this angel God himself was present, as the Shepherd of his 
flock, the Holy One of Israel ; whom they tempted and provoked in 
the wilderness, and in vexing Him, they vexed God's Holy Spirit. 
Lastly, St. Stephen expressly declares Christ to have been the prophet 
whom God raised up, as he did Moses, and the angel who, as well as 
Moses, was with the church in the wilderness, and who spake to 
Moses in Mount Sinai. So ended the great day on which God came 
down to the earth to announce his law ; the type of the milder reve- 
lation which was made when the evangelical exposition of that law 
was given by the same voice, though now clad in the form of the man 
Jesus, on the Mount of the Beatitudes. 

One circumstance remains to be noticed. St. Stephen upbraids 
the Jews for not keeping the law, though they had received it by the 




w 



133 



134 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

disposition of angels. This appears evidently to be an allusion to 
those hosts of angels or "holy ones" whose presence at Sinai is more than 
once mentioned, and whom the Apostle contrasts with the innumerable 
company of angels on the spiritual Sion. These angels seem to have 
been present, not only to swell Jehovah's state, but to intimate the 
consent of the whole intelligent universe to that law which is forever 
" holy, just, and good." 

The element of terror, which prevailed in the revelation given on 
Sinai, was the true type of the aspect of the law to the mind of sinful 
man. Pure and holy in itself, it became " death," when proposed as 
the condition of life ; and its great purpose was to reveal to self-right- 
eous man " the exceeding sinfulness of sin," that he might be led to 
receive the grace of God in Christ. Thus the clouds of Sinai did not 
exibit, but concealed, the true glory of Jehovah ; and He now vouch- 
safed a vision of that glory to Moses, with Aaron and his sons Nadab 
and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. But first Moses 
wrote the precepts already given, and set up an altar and memorial 
pillars, one for each tribe, and sacrificed burnt-offerings and peace- 
offerings of oxen, and sprinkled with the blood the book of the 
covenant which he then read to the people, who renewed their promise 
of obedience, and were themselves also sprinkled with the blood, and 
so the "covenant of works" was ratified. The chosen party now 
went up, and saw God enthroned in his glory, as he was afterward 
seen by Ezekiel and John, and yet they lived. Moses was then called 
up alone into the mount, to receive the tables of stone and the law 
which God had written, while Aaron and Hur were left to govern the 
people. Followed only by his servant Joshua, Moses went up into 
the mount, which a cloud covered for six days, crowned with the glory 
of God as a burning fire. On the seventh day Moses was called into 
the cloud, and there he abode without food forty days and forty nights. 

While God was instructing Moses in the ordinances of divine wor- 
ship, the people had already relapsed into idolatry. We must 
remember that, as Egypt had been the scene of the people's child- 
hood, their sojourn in the wilderness was their spiritual youth, the 
age of sensuous impressions and of unstable resolutions. The great 
works done for them were soon forgotten, while each present difficulty 
seemed insupportable. As the weeks passed by without the return 
of Moses, they began to think they had lost both their leader and 
their new-found god. They recalled the visible objects of worship, 
to which they had been used in Egypt, and they asked Aaron to 
make them gods to go before them. Weakly yielding to their de- 








lob 



136 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

mand, and, perhaps, hoping that they would not make the costly 
sacrifice, Aaron asked for their golden ear-rings, from which he made 
a " molten calf," the symbol of the Egyptian Apis. This he exhibited 
to the people as the image of the God who had brought them out of 
Egypt, and he built an altar before the idol. But yet it was in the 
name of Jehovah that he proclaimed a festival for the morrow, which 
the people celebrated with a banquet, followed by songs and lascivious 
dances. This was on the last of the forty days, and God sent Moses 
down from the mount, telling him of Israel's sin, and declaring his 
purpose to destroy them, and to make of him a new nation. With 
self-denying importunity, Moses pleaded for the people, by the honor 
of God in the eyes of the Egyptians, and by his covenant with 
Abraham, Isaac, and Israel ; " and Jehovah repented of the evil 
which he thought to do unto his people." 

Moses now descended from the mount, carrying in his hands the 
two tables of stone, on which God's own finger had written the Ten 
Commandments. His path lay through a ravine, which cut off his 
view of the camp, but he soon heard their cry of revelry, which his 
warlike attendant Joshua mistook for the noise of battle. As he 
reached the plain, the disgraceful scene burst upon him, and in 
righteous anger he dashed the tables out of his hands, and broke 
them in pieces at the foot of the mount ; giving at once a terrible 
significance for all future time to the phrase, a broken law, and a sign 
of man's inability to keep the law given on Sinai. For both Moses 
and the people, though in different ways, were showing, by their acts, 
that the first use to which man puts God's law is to break it. Both 
tables were broken, for idolatry had been followed by licentiousness. 
He next destroyed the calf by fire and pounding, strewed its dust 
upon the stream from which the people drank, and reproached Aaron, 
who could only offer feeble excuses. Then he executed a terrible 
example on the people. Standing in the gate of the camp, he cried, 
" Who is Jehovah's ? to me !" and all his brethren of the tribe of 
Levi rallied round him, and went through the camp at his command, 
slaying about three thousand men, and not sparing their own kindred. 
This was the consecration of Levi to the service and priesthood of 
Jehovah. The blood shed by his righteous sentence expiated the 
violence done to the Shechemites, and turned into a blessing the curse 
that deed had brought on the father of their tribe, and their sacrifice 
of their own feelings and affections for the cause of God marked them 
as fit to offer continual sacrifices for his people. 

The self-sacrifice of Moses went far greater lengths. On the mor- 



MARCH FROM EGYPT TO SINAI. 137 

row, he reproved the people for their sin, but promised to intercede 
for them ; and then he addressed to Jehovah these awful words : 
" Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin — ; and if not, blot me, I pray 
thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." The only parallel, but 
one, is the cry of Paul, " I could wish that myself were accursed from 
Christ for my brethren." It seems impious to suppose them willing 
to renounce their hope of eternal life ; but all present share in God's 
covenant with his people they were willing to renounce. The exact 
sense of the prayer must remain an unfathomable mystery : its spirit 
was the spirit of him of whom Moses as mediator was the type, who 
went through with the like self-sacrifice, and drank its cup to the 
dregs : " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for us." 

But no mere man could drink of that cup, and God replied to 
Moses that the sinner himself should be blotted out of his book, and 
he sent plagues upon the people. Once more he promised to send his 
angel before them, to be a mediator as well as leader. At this the 
people murmured, thinking that they were to lose God's own pres- 
ence, and they put themselves into mourning. Moses removed the 
sacred tent, called the " tabernacle of the congregation," out of the 
camp which had been profaned, and all who sought Jehovah went 
out to it. When Moses himself went out, and entered the tabernacle, 
the pillar of cloud descended to its door, "and Jehovah spake unto 
Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend," while all the 
people looked on from their tent doors and worshipped. When 
Moses returned into the camp, Joshua remained in the tabernacle. 

Having obtained pardon for the people, Moses prayed for a special 
encouragement to himself: — " Shew me now thy way, that I may 
know thee." Receiving the assurance that God's presence should be 
with him, to give him rest, he renewed the prayer, " Shew me thy 
glory." The answer seems to intimate that God's glory is in his 
goodness and in his grace and mercy ; but that, in our present state, 
we can only follow the track which his glory leaves in the works of 
grace he does : we cannot bear to look face to face at his perfections 
in their essence. He vouchsafed to Moses the outward sign for which 
he asked, promising to place him in a clift of the rock, and to hide 
him while the glory of Jehovah passed by, so that he could only see 
the train behind him. 

The narrative may be partly conceived by the help of the like 
vision which was granted to Elijah in this wilderness of Sinai. 

Moses went up alone into the mount, which was secured against 




133 



MARCH FROM EGYPT TO SINAI 



139 




SOUTH-EAST VIEAV OF THE TABERNACLE. 



intrusion, carrying with him two tables of stone to replace those which 
he had broken, for God made repeated trials of the people's faith. 
Then Jehovah descended in a cloud, and proclaimed his name as the 
God of mercy, grace, long-suffering, goodness and truth, from genera- 
tion to generation. At this proclamation of God's true glory, Moses 
came forth to intercede once more for his people ; and God renewed 
his covenant, to work wonders for them, and to bring them into the 
promised land, adding a new warning against their falling into the 
idolatry of Canaan. This time also Moses remained in the mount 
for forty days and forty nights, and received anew the precepts of the 
law, as well as the two tables he had carried up, inscribed with the 
Ten Commandments by God himself. 

When Moses came down from the mount, the light of God's glory 
shone so brightly from his face, that the people were unable to look 
at him, till he had covered it with a veil, while he recited to them 
the commandments that God had given him. 

Moses now gathered a congregation of the people, and, 
after repeating the law of the Sabbath, he asked their free 
gifts for the tabernacle and its furniture. The spoil of the Egyptians 
was brought as a free-will offering to Jehovah, jewels and precious 
metals, skins and woven fabrics, spices, oils, and incense. Two men 
were filled by God with skill for the work; Bezaleel, the son of Uri, 
of the tribe of Judah, and Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe 
of Dan; and they wrought with "every wise-hearted man, in whom 
Jehovah put wisdom and understanding to work for the service of the 
sanctuary." They soon found the offerings of the people tar above 



B. c. 1490. 



140 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




THE COVERINGS. 



what was required ; and they made the tabernacle with its furniture 
and vessels, the cloths of service, and the garments of the priests, 
after the pattern shown to Moses in the mount, and Moses blessed 
them. 

All things being thus prepared, Moses was commanded to set up 
the tab?rnacle and place in it the ark of the covenant, and to anoint 
Aaron and his sons to the priesthood. The solemn ceremony took 
place on the first day of the first month of the second year from the 
epoch of the Exodus, March to April, b. c. 1490. Jehovah vouch- 
safed a visible token of his presence and approval by covering the 
tabernacle with the cloud and filling it with his glory, so that Moses 
could not enter into the tabernacle, and by sending down on the altar 
the sacred fire, with which alone the sacrifices were henceforth to be 
offered. The scene thus simply and briefly related by Moses should 
be compared with the more elaborate description of the dedication of 
Solomon's temple, of which the tabernacle was the model. A whole 
month was spent in arranging the service of the sanctuary, as it is set 
forth in the Book of Leviticus, before the people prepared for their 
onward journey. 




ADVANCE FROM SINAI. 141 




CHAPTER X. 

THE ADVANCE FROM SINAI, AND THE WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS. 

[a. m. 2514-2522. b. c. 1490-1452.] 

N the first day of the second month of the second year from the 
epoch of the Exodus (Jyar=May, 1490), Jehovah commanded 
Moses to number the people able to bear arms, from twenty 
years old and upward. The census was to be taken by Aaron, 
with a chosen assistant from each tribe, except that of Levi. 

The Levites were exempted from military service, and they were 

numbered separately. 

The other tribes were made up to twelve by the division 
b. c. 1490. . 

of Joseph into Ephraim and Manasseh. The following is 

the result, in the order given in the book of Numbers, which takes its 

title from this census : — 

Reuben 46,500 i (Joseph) : Ephraim 40,500 

Simeon 59,300 | (Joseph) : Manasseh 32.200 

Gad 45,050 j Benjamin 35,400 

Judah 74,600 | Dan 62,700 

Issachar 54,400 j A slier 41,500 

Zebulun 57,400 ! Naphtali 53,400 



Total of the military array 603,550 

These may be taken as the exact figures corresponding to the round 
number of 600,000, as given at the Exodus. From the identity of 
the total, and the improbability of their being two numberings in one 
year, this seems to be the same as the census mentioned before, in con- 
nection with the half-shekel tax for the service of the sanctuary. 

The object of the census was military, in preparation for the inarch 
to Canaan. A captain was appointed for every tribe; and the whole 
host was divided into four camps, which surrounded the tabernacle 
during a halt, and went before and after it on the march, in the fol- 
lowing order : — 

I. On the East, and in the van: the camp of Judah, with Issachar 
and Zebulun, 186,400 men. 

II. On the South, and second : the camp of Reuben, with Simeon 
and Gad, 151,450 men. 

The Tabernacle and Levi. 



U2 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




EMBLEMS ON THE STANDARDS OF THE TRIBES. 



III. On the West, and last but one : the camp of Ephraim with 
Manasseh and Benjamin, 108,100 men. 

IV. On the North, and in the rear : the camp of Dan, with Asher 
and Naphtali, 157,600 men. 

Each tribe had its standard. 

Another object of the census was religious. The above numbers, 
besides excluding the tribe of Levi, included some who had no right 
there, as not being sui juris, namely, the first-born, who were conse- 
crated to Jehovah. Of both these classes, the Levites and the first- 
born, the census included the males from one month old and upward, 
and there were found to be — 

Of the first-born 22,273 

Of the tribe of Levi 22,000 

Difference 273 

The Levites were taken for the service of Jehovah, in place of the 
first-born, man for man : the remaining 273 were redeemed for five 



144 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

shekels each; and this sum of 1365 shekels was given to Aaron and 
his sons. The cattle of the Levites were taken instead of the first- 
born cattle. 

This substitution of the Levites for the first-born gave the former 
a sacrificial as well as a sacerdotal holiness to Jehovah, an idea ex- 
tended to all the redeemed, as " the church of the first-born." 

The Levites were again numbered, from thirty * to fifty years, for 
the service of the sanctuary ; and to each of their three families their 
respective duties were assigned. The numbers were — 

Of the Kohathites 2750 

Of the sons of Gershon 2630 

Of the sons of Merari 3200 

Total of priests and Levites 8580 

The description of this census, in the book of Numbers, immedi- 
ately after the setting up of the tabernacle, anticipates some events 
which occurred in the interval before the march was resumed — such 
as the purification of the camp by excluding the unclean, the institu- 
tion of the order of Nazarites, and the offerings of the princes of 
Israel (the heads of the twelve tribes), at the dedication of the temple 
and of the altar. Here also we read the beautiful form prescribed for 
the blessing of Aaron and his sons upon the people in God's name : — 

"Jehovah hless thee : and keep thee. 
Jehovah make his face to shine upon thee : 

and be gracious unto thee. 
Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee : 

and give thee peace." 

A special mention is made of the second celebration of the Passover 
•in the wilderness of Sinai, with the addition of a new law permitting 
those who were defiled, or travelling, to keep it a month later. 

We find in the Book of Leviticus an account of the death at this 
period of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, by fire from Jehovah, 
for offering "strange fire" on the altar of incense, instead of the sac- 
red fire sent down from God. It appears from the sequel that the 
sacrilege was committed in drunken recklessness. Aaron and his 
surviving sons were forbidden to defile the priesthood by the utter- 
ance of their natural grief, and commanded to remain within the 
tabernacle, leaving the congregation to "bewail the burning which 

* The mention of twenty-five, in Numbers viii. 24, as the age of entrauce, must 
be understood either of a probationary period during which they were trained for 
their duties, or of the lighter work of keeping the gates of the Tabernacle. 



ADVANCE FROM SINAI. 145 

Jehovah had kindled." The law was laid down that the priests 
should drink no wine or strong drink when they went into the taber- 
nacle, lest they should be incapacitated from distinguishing between 
the holy and the unholy, between the unclean and the clean. Even 
the survivors incurred the severe displeasure of Moses for not eating 
the sin-offering in the Holy Place. 

About this time also occurred the stoning of a man to death by the peo- 
ple for the crime of blaspheming " the Name" He was the son of a 
Hebrew woman by an Egyptian father, and not a pure-blooded Hebrew. 
At length God informed Moses that the people had 
dwelt on the mountain long enough, and that the time 
had come for them to continue their journey. They were directed to 
go, as the first aim of their journey, " to the mount of the Amorites," 
that is, the highlands of Judah and Ephraim, which rise on the north 
of the desert of et-Tih, and fill the central part of southern Palestine. 
To this is added the mention of " all the places nigh thereunto, in the 
plain (Arabah)" which seems here to mean the whole valley of the 
Jordan, and its lakes ; " in the hills" probably of Judah, and perhaps 
including Mount Gilead, east of the Jordan ; " in the vale (shephelah)" 
that is, the lowlands situated in trie land of the Philistines ; "in the 
south" the special portion of Judah ; " by the seaside" the great 
littoral region north of Carmel, as far as Phoenicia ; " to the land of the 
Canaanites" or Northern Palestine ; " and unto Lebanon ;" " to the 
great river, the river Euphrates." 

On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year (about 
May 20, 1490 b. a), the cloud of Jehovah's presence was lifted up 
from the tabernacle, as the sign of departure; and the tabernacle it- 
self was taken down. At the alarm blown by the two silver trum- 
pets, which God had commanded to be made, each of the four camps 
set forward in its appointed order, and the host followed the cloud 
into the wilderness of Paran. This divine guidance relieved Moses 
from all responsibility as to the direction of the journey. Moses in- 
vited Hobab, either his father-in-law, or brother-in-law, to go with 
them, in those memorable words so often quoted in a wider sense — 
" We are journeying unto the place of which Jehovah said, I will give 
it you : come with us, and we will do thee good : for Jehovah hath 
spoken good concerning Israel ;" and Hobab consented to guide them 
through the desert. He appears as the experienced Bedouin sheikh, 
to whom Moses looked for the material safety of his cumbrous cara- 
van in the new and difficult ground before them. The tracks and 
passes of that " waste howling wilderness " were all familiar to him, 
10 



- 




146 



ADVANCE FROM SINAI. Hf 

and his practised sight would be to them " instead of eyes " in dis- 
cerning the distant clumps of verdure which betokened the wells or 
springs for the daily encampment, and in giving timely warning of 
the approach of Amalekites, or other spoilers of the desert. " The 
ark of the covenant of Jehovah went before them, to search out a 
resting-place for them. And the cloud of Jehovah was upon them 
by day, when they went out of the camp." When the ark set for- 
ward, Moses cried, " Rise up, O Jehovah, and let thine enemies be 
scattered ; and let them that hate thee flee before thee." And when 
it rested, he said, " Return, O Jehovah, unto the ten thousand thou- 
sands of Israel." Thus they went three days' journey into the wilder- 
ness of Paran. 

In following the route of the Israelites, we must try to determine 
two or three chief positions. The general direction is northward from 
Sinai " to the mount of the Amorites," the highlands of Southern 
Palestine. The two extremes are the camp before Sinai on the south, 
and the " city " of Kadesh, or Kadesh-barnea, on the north. The 
distance between these points was eleven days' journey (about 165 
miles), " by the w r ay of Mount Seir." This is evidently mentioned as 
the ordinary route, and it seems to be implied (though this must not 
be assumed as certain) that it was followed by the Israelites. If it 
were so, their course would lie nearly along, or parallel to the Gulf 
of Akabah, and up the wide plain of the Arabah, which runs north- 
ward from the head of the gulf, between Mount Seir on the east and 
the desert of et-Tih on the west. Their present journey must be care- 
fully distinguished from their final march into Palestine, at the end 
of the thirty-eight years' wandering in the wilderness. On that occa- 
sion they descended the Arabah, after being refused permission to 
pass through Edom, rested at Elath [Akabah), at the head of the Gulf 
of Akabah ; and whence, turning the southern point of Mount Seir, 
they skirted its eastern side to the country of Moab, east of the Jor- 
dan. But, on their first march, there is no clear evidence that they 
rested at the head of the Gulf of Akabah, or passed up the Arabah ; 
and the probabilities are very nicely balanced. Much of the diffi- 
culty arises from confounding the directions in which they proposed 
to enter Palestine on the two occasions. Their final entrance was 
made from the east, by way of the plains of Moab ; but their first 
entrance was to have been from the south, by way of Hebron. This 
is clear from the command to march to the mountain of the Amorites : 
from the description of the circuit made by the spies, and especially 
from their visiting Hebron and Eshcol. Whatever, therefore, the 



148 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

route to Kadesh may have been, that station was a final starting- 
point for Hebron ; and thus we have some guide for the latter part of 
the journey. 

Between " the mount of the Amorites" and the group of Sinai, lies 
the great table-land now called the desert of et-Tih (the wandering). 
There can be no doubt of its general correspondence to the wilderness 
of Paran, in which the cloud rested, when it was first lifted up from 
the tabernacle. This arid tract of limestone answers well to the de- 
scription of Moses : " When w T e departed from Horeb, w T e went through 
all that great and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the 
mountain of the Amorites ; and we came to Kadesh-barnea." Its 
limits are clearly marked out by the mountain ranges, which divide it 
on the southwest from the desert of Shur, on the south from that of 
Sinai, and on the east from the Arabali. The range which divides it 
on the south from the desert of Sinai is also called et-Tih; and this the 
Israelites seem to have crossed, in passing out of the wilderness of 
Sinai to that of Paran. But it is not clear that they made this passage 
in their first journey of three days. It took them some time to get 
clear of the wadys about Sinai ; and although Paran is mentioned from 
the first as the region into which they passed, the three important sta- 
tions of Taberah, Kibroth-hattaavah, and Hazeroth can hardly 
be reckoned to Paran, as they are said to have encamped in the wild- 
erness of Paran after leaving Hazeroth. Unfortunately these three 
names furnish little, if any, clew to the route they took from Sinai. 
Taberah (a burning) records the awful judgment that befell the peo- 
ple, who now began again to murmur against Jehovah. "Fire burnt 
among them, and consumed those that were in the uttermost parts of 
the camp ;" doubtless, from the order of the encampment, the mixed 
multitude who came with the people out of Egypt. 

The name of the next station, Kibroth-hattaavah (the graves of 
lust), is of similar origin. On this occasion too the rebellion began 
with " the mixed multitude." Their lust for better food spread to the 
Israelites, who, remembering the fish and the vegetables of Egypt, 
loathed the manna, and asked for flesh. God sent them quails, on 
which they surfeited themselves for a whole month ; and while the 
flesh was yet between their teeth, they were smitten with a great 
plague, which gave the place its name. The mention of the sea in two 
passages of this narrative has been used as an argument that the route 
thus far was along the valleys which run eastward from Sinai to the 
Gulf of Akabah ; but the sea is near to any part of the peninsula, and 
the flights of birds which have attracted the attention of travellers are 
characteristic of the whole region. 



ADVANCE FROM SINAI. 149 

A very important institution arose out of the rebellion. Moses 
complained to Jehovah that the burden of the people was too great for 
him to bear alone. He was directed to choose seventy of the elders 
of Israel, and to present them before the tabernacle ; where Jehovah 
came down in the cloud, and gave them a share of the Spirit that was 
On Moses, and they prophesied. Two of them who had not come out 
to the tabernacle, Eldad and Medad, prophesied in the camp; an inti- 
mation of the truth, so often taught by the prophets, that even in the 
old dispensation the power of God's Spirit transcended the forms and 
places of his own appointment. But the devout zelot is slow to 
receive this truth; and so Joshua prayed Moses to forbid them, just as 
the disciples asked Christ to forbid those who wrought miracles, but 
did not follow in his train ; and both received answers in the same 
spirit. 

The appointment of the seventy elders has often been regarded as 
the germ of the Sanhedrim. They seem rather to have been a Senate, 
whose office was confined to assisting Moses in the government, and 
ceased with the cessation of his leadership. No trace of the Sanhe- 
drim is found till the return from the Babylonish captivity. It is 
more certain that the manner of their consecration prefigured the order 
of the Prophets. The irresistible force with which the divine Spirit 
impelled them to prophesy has several parallels in the Jewish history, 
and is yet to be fulfilled in the pouring out of God's Spirit on all 
flesh. 

For the next halting-place, Hazeroth ( the enclosures), a site has 
been found at the Wady Huderah, on the main route from Sinai to the 
shores of the Gulf of Akabah. It lies on the margin between the 
granite of the Tur and the sandstone of the Debbet-er-Ramleh, and 
therefore properly neither in the desert of Sinai, nor in that of Paran. 
Close to Huderah is a brook called El-Ain (the water), of itself a 
strong argument for this route, and inviting an encampment for a 
considerable time, such as the name seems to imply. 

At Hazeroth Moses was troubled by a seditious opposition from 
Miriam and Aaron. They spake against him because of the CusJiite 
woman whom he had married, probably his Midianitc wife, Zipporah ; 
and placed their authority on a level with his. On this occasion we 
have that celebrated description of the character of Moses : " Now 
the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were on the 
face of the earth." We have also that testimony to his faithfulness 
as a servant set over the house of God, which the Apostle uses as a type 
of Christ's government over his own house, the Church. Jehovah 



150 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

1 

called forth Aaron and Miriam, with Moses, to the tabernacle, and 

declared his pleasure to converse with Moses openly, mouth to mouth, 
and not, as to other prophets, in visions, dreams, and dark speeches 
(parables); and reproved them for speaking against him. Miriam 
was smitten with leprosy ; and, though she was healed at the prayer 
of Moses, Aaron, as the high-priest, was obliged to shut her out from 
the camp for seven days ; after which "the people removed from 
Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran." 

Here is the Gordian knot of the topography. We are not told at 
what point they passed into the wilderness of Paran, nor how many 
stages they made in it. We find them next at Kadesh, whence the 
spies were sent out; but to determine the position of Kadesh itself is 
the great problem of the whole route. We obtain no help from the 
list of stations, in which Kadesh is not mentioned, and the name of 
Hazeroth is followed by several unknown places, of which it is even 
uncertain whether they belong to this journey, or to the years of wan- 
dering in the wilderness. The latter seems the more probable alterna- 
tive, since the mention of Mount Hor clearly refers to the fortieth year, 
and at least the eight preceding stations are closely connected with it ; 
while the halt at Kadesh must be understood of a return to that place 
after the long wanderings. The only escape from these difficulties is 
by the hypothesis that Kadesh served as a sort of headquarters during 
the thirty-eight years of wandering. The Israelites arrived at 
Kadesh forty days before the vintage, or about the latter part of 
August ; and they made there a longer halt than at any other place, 
except before Sinai. 

1490 Upon reaching Kadesh, Jehovah informed the people that 
they had now reached the mountain of the Amorites, into 
which they were to ascend to possess the land promised to their fathers 
and to them. First, however, the land was to be searched by twelve 
spies. These were at once selected, the heads of the twelve tribes 
being chosen. Their names are given at length in the Bible, but only 
two of them are memorable, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, of the 
tribe of Judah, and Joshua, the son of Xun, of the tribe of Ephraim. 
They entered the land and searched it for forty days, penetrating as 
far to the north as Rehob on the way to Hamath, (i. e. Antilibanus), 
ascending the Ghor and the valley of the Jordan on their route. On 
their return from Rehob, they went to Hebron, the ancient home of 
their father Abraham, and searched the surrounding country. In the 
neighboring valley of Eschol they cut down a cluster of grapes as an 
evidence of the fertility of the land. The cluster was so large that 



ADVANCE FROM SINAI 



151 




GRAPES BROUGHT BACK BY THE SPIES. 



it was necessary for two men to bear it between them on a staff. To 
this was added a collection of ripe figs and pomgranates. After an 
abode of a year and a half in the desert, we may imagine how beautiful 
the land of promise appeared to them at this time, the season of the 
first ripe grapes. 

Returning to^he camp they reported that, " It is a good land that 
Jehovah our God doth give us; surely it floweth with milk and 
honey." The people were delighted by this report, which was con- 
firmed by the fruits brought by the spies; but their ardor was 
suddenly dampened when the spies told of the difficulties which lay 
in the way of acquiring possession of the land. " Nevertheless," they 
said*, " the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are 
walled and are very great ; and, moreover, we saw the children of 
Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south ; and 
the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the moun- 
tains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of 
Jordan." The people were dismayed by this intelligence, but Caleb, 
afterward supported by Joshua, endeavored to calm their fears, telling 
them they were perfectly able to conquer the land. The other spies, 
however, neutralized these efforts, by exaggerating both the strength 
of the land and the physical power of its inhabitants, and by assuring 
the Israelites that the land was so fertile that it always invited attack 
from the surrounding nations, and would not be a peaceable posses- 
sion for them if they should conquer it. " It is," said they, "a laud 



152 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

that eateth up the inhabitants thereof." The people spent the night 
in bewailing their lost hopes. 

In the morning the camp was in open rebellion, and the mutineers 
clamored for the election of a captain who should lead them back to 
Egypt. Moses and Aaron fell down before the people and besought 
them to return to their allegiance to Jehovah, and Caleb and Joshua 
repeated their assurances of victory; but all in vain. The Rebels 
were furious, and in their anger had taken up stones to stone their 
leaders, when suddenly the glory of Jehovah blazed forth from the 
tabernacle, and stayed them. God spake to Moses, and informed 
him of his purpose to destroy Israel, to disinherit them, and to make 
of him a nation. Once more, as at Sinai, the intercession of Moses 
prevailed ; but, while consenting to pardon the nation, Jehovah swore 
by himself that "the earth should be filled with his glory," in the 
example he would make of the men who had rebelled against him; 
not one of whom, save Caleb,* should see the promised land. The 
•sentence was to be put into execution at once, and the people were 
ordered to depart on the morrow for the wilderness by the way of 
the Red Sea. There they were to wander for forty years — a year for 
each day that the spies had searched the land — till all the men of 
twenty years old and upward had left their carcasses in the desert ; 
and then at length their children, having shared their wanderings, 
should enter on their inheritance. As an earnest of the judgment, 
the ten faithless spies were slain by a plague. 

The people now changed their mind, but it was too late. Then, in 
■spite of the warning of Moses, they impiously marched up into the 
mountain, seeking to seize the land in spite of the sentence of God. 
They were met by the combined forces of the Amorites, Amalekites, 
and Canaanites, and were defeated with frightful slaughter, and 
pursued as far as Hormah, and even to Mount Seir. 

The thirty-eight years (or rather exactly thirty-seven 

14.00 ' 14*59 y ears an d a half) occupied in the execution of God's 

judgment on u the generation that grieved him in the 

wilderness, and to whom he sware in his wrath, They shall not enter 

into my rest," form almost a blank in the sacred history. Their 

* Joshua is not mentioned in this declaration (Numbers xiv. 24), probably be- 
cause his destined leadership was already known to Moses, as his new name 
implies ; but he is expressly named with Caleb in the repetition of the sentence 
to the people (Numbers xiv. 30). Still as Caleb was the first to withstand the 
rebellion, he receives the higher praise and reward. Hebron itself was made his 
inheritance. 



ADVANCE FROM SINAI. 



153 




THE ISRAELITES DEFEATED BY THE CANAANITES. 

close may be fixed at the period of the final march from Kadesli to 
Mount Hor, and thence down through the Arabah, and up the eastern 
side of Mount Seir, to the plains of Moab. But the intervening por- 
tions of the narrative are most difficult to assign to their proper place 
— whether to the first or final stay at Kadesh, or to the years between. 
The mystery which hangs over this period seems like an awful silence 
into which the rebels sink away. 

After the rout in Hormah, the people " abode in Kadesh many 
days." This phrase may possibly cover the whole period of the 
wandering; and Kadesh may very well be taken for a general name 
of the wilderness. The direction in which the people started on their 
wanderings is defined, " by the way of the Red Sea" which seems 



154 niSTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

clearly to mean down the Arabah to the head of the Elanitic Gulf. 
# Xow it seems that the passage in Dent. ii. 1, must be referred to this 
same " turning into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea/' aDd 
not to the final march, the signal for whicji is recorded at v. 3; 
and this is confirmed by the computation of the thirty-eight years of 
wandering from the time thev left Kadesh-barnea. If this be so, we 
have a clew to the direction of the wandering in the words, "and we 
compassed Mount Seir many days;" words which point to the 
Arabah. "With this agrees the notice of their last march back to 
Kadesh, being from Ezion-geber at the head of the Gulf of Akabah. 

There is another light, in which the question has hardly been yet 
regarded. We have often felt staggered at the idea of this vast 
multitude being led up and down the awful desolations of the Tih, 
amid terrific sufferings to men, women, children, and cattle, with no 
assignable purpose, except to spend out the allotted years; and we 
would rather believe that God mitigated their punishment, than that 
he added any unnecessary suffering to the sentence of the gradual 
death of the grown-up generation. Nor do we read of any such 
sufferings as they must have endured had they plunged into the Tih : 
it is not till their return to Kadesh that we find them wanting water. 
Is it not more consistent with the spirit of the narrative, and with 
the ways of God, to suppose that their wanderings had at least an 
apparent object, which determined their direction and extent ? When 
they found that they could not scale the mountain passes of the Amo- 
rites, their southward journey might well have for its object to find 
some passage through Edom to the east by the route they at last fol- 
lowed ; and it may have been with this hope that they " compassed 
Mount Seir for many days." Then, as in the end, they may have 
met with a refusal from the Edomites; and so have waited about 
their head-quarters at Kadesh, trying sometimes one passage and 
sometimes another, but shut out on both sides; and meanwhile lead- 
ing a nomad life, chiefly among the pastures of the Arabah, till God's 
appointed time had come. This view is strongly confirmed by Judges 
xi. 1G-18, where it is said that, on coming up out of Egypt, Israel 
sent messengers both to the kings of Edom and of Moab, asking for 
a passage; and, after their refusal, Israel abode in Kadesh. Then 
they went along through the wilderness, and encompassed the land 
of Edom, etc. In the poetry of the Hebrews, Mount Seir and Edom 
are constantly connected with the wanderings. 

There are five chapters in the Book of Numbers referring to this 
interval, but to what part of it we cannot say. Besides sundry reli- 
gious laws, they record the following events: — 



ADVANCE FROM SINAI. 155 

I. The death by stoning of a man who was found gathering sticks 
on the Sabbath day. His offence was the doing servile work ; its spirit 
was presumptuous disobedience to Jehovah, and the penalty had al- 
ready been declared. »The case was expressly referred by Moses to 
Jehovah, and it is recorded as an example that the law of the Sabbath 
was not to be a dead letter. 

II. The rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram was an attempt 
to deprive the priesthood of its special sanctity, by a perversion of the 
truth declared by God himself, that all the people were " an holy na- 
tion and a royal priesthood." It was led by Korah, a Levite, with 
250 princes famous in the congregation, who claimed equality with 
the priests ; and he was joined by Dathan and Abiram, and others of 
the tribe of Reuben, whose claim probably rested on the primogeniture 
of their ancestor. At God's command, Korah and his company pre- 
sented themselves with Moses and Aaron at the door of the tabernacle, 
each with his censer, favored as it would seem by the congregation. 
Then the voice of God called to Moses and Aaron to separate them- 
selves from the congregation, that he might destroy them. For the 
third time the intercessor obtained the people's pardon : they were bidden 
to remove from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram ; and, at the 
word of Moses, the earth opened and swallowed up the rebels, w r ith 
their families and all that belonged to them, while fire burst out from 
the tabernacle and consumed the 250 princes. Their brazen censers, 
as being sacred, were gathered by Aaron out of the fire, to make plates 
for a covering of the altar of burnt-offering. 

III. The people now murmured at the fate of the men whose re- 
bellion they had favored, and, at the very moment when they gathered 
against Moses and Aaron before the tabernacle, Jehovah appeared in 
the cloud, and sent a pestilence among them. Then followed one of 
the most striking examples of the intercession of Moses and the media- 
tion of the high-priest. Seeing that " wrath was gone out from Je- 
hovah," Moses bade Aaron to fill his censer with coals from the altar 
and with incense, as an atonement for the people, and to stand between 
the living and the dead; and so the plague was stayed. A most strik- 
ing symbol of Christ's mediation to save those who are doomed to the 
death of sin. 

IV. After these things, a new sign was given of Jehovah's special 
favor to the house of Aaron. Twelve rods, or sceptres, were chosen 
for the several tribes, and laid up in the tabernacle before the ark, the 
name of Aaron being inscribed on the rod of Levi. In the morning 
Moses went into the tabernacle and brought forth the rods, and returned 




AARON'S HOD THAT BUDDED. 



no 



ADVANCE FROM SINAI. 157 

them to the princes of the tribes, when Aaron's rod was seen covered 
with buds and blossoms, and full-grown almonds. The rest were still 
dry sticks ; but his was a living and fruitful sceptre. It was a vivid 
emblem of " the rod of Jesse," the " Branch," springing up without 
the sustenance of nature, which in the prophets represents the spiritual 
and life-giving power of Messiah. By the command of God it was 
laid up in the ark, for a perpetual memorial against the like rebellions. 
The people, now terrified into submission, cried that they only drew 
near the tabernacle to perish, and Jehovah repeated the law, commit- 
ting the charge of the sanctuary to the Levites. 



158 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




CHAPTER XL 

FINAL MARCH FROM KADESH TO THE JORDAN — DEATH OF MOSES. 
[a. m. 2552-2553. B. c. 1452-1451.] 

>|iN" the first month of the fortieth year of the epoch of the Exodus 
T (April, B. c. 1452), we find the Israelites again in the wilder- 
^ ness of Sin, at Kadesh, whither they seem to have marched up 
the Arabah* from Ezion-geber, at the head of the Gulf of 
Akabah. The doom under which the most of the old gene- 
ration had perished, now reached the house of Araram. Miriam, the 
elder sister of Moses and Aaron, died and was buried here. She is 
spoken of as a prophetess, as sharing the sacred mission 

t> /"t "1 A ^jO 

of her brothers; and tradition makes her the wife of Hur, 
and grandmother of the artist Bezaleel ; and it is said that the mourn- 
ing for her, as for her brothers, lasted thirty days. In the time of 
Jerome, her tomb was shown near Petra. 

* Although this word appears in the Authorized Version in its original shape 
only in Josh, xviii. 18, yet in the Hebrew text it is of frequent occurrence. It is 
used generally to indicate a barren, uninhabitable district, but "the Arabah" in- 
dicates more particularly the deep sunken valley or trench which forms the most 
striking among the many striking natural features of Palestine, and which extends 
with great uniformity of formation from the slopes of Hermon to the Elanitic Gulf 
(Gulf of Akabah) of the Red Sea — the most remarkable depression known to 
exist on the surface of the globe. Through the northern portion of this extraor- 
dinary fissure the Jordan rushes through the lakes of Huleh and Gennesareth 
down its tortuous course to the deep chasm of the Dead Sea. This portion, about 
150 miles in length, is known among the Arabs by the name of El-Glwr. The 
southern boundary of the Ghor is the wall of cliffs which crosses the valley about 
ten miles south of the Dead Sea. From their summits, southward to the Gulf of 
Akabah, the valley changes its name, or, it would be more accurate to say, retains 
its old name of Wady -el- Arabah. 

At present our attention may be confined to the southern division, to that por- 
tion of this singular valley which has from the most remote date borne, as it still 
continues to bear, the name of Arabah. A deep interest will always attach to 
this remarkable district, from the fact that it must have been the scene of a large 
portion of the wanderings of the children of Israel after their repulse from the 
south of the promised land. Wherever Kadesh and Hormah may hereafter be 
found to lie, we know with certainty, even in our present state of ignorance, that 
they must have been at the north of the Arabah ; and therefore "the way of the 
Red Sea," by which they journeyed " from Mount Hor to compass the land of 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN. 159 

Here, too, Moses and Aaron committed the sin which brought them 
also under the sentence of death without entering the promised land. 
The people murmured for water, as they had done at Rephidim, and 
Moses and Aaron asked God what they must do in this emergency. 
They were commanded by Jehovah to assemble the people, and he 
and Aaron were to stand before the rock or cliff in the si^ht of the 
people. Then Moses was to take the rod in his hand and simply to 
speak to the rock, and it should yield water — it being the design of 
the Almighty to display his power by a greater miracle than he had 
wrought at Rephidim. This time the trial was too strong both for 
the patience and the humanity of Moses. Upbraiding the people as 
rebels, he asked, " Must we fetch you water out of this rock ?" — and 
he smote the rock twice with his rod. The water gushed forth in an 
abundant stream, which probably followed the march of the people 

Edom," after the refusal of the King of Edom to allow them a passage through 
his country, must have been southward, down the Arabah toward the head of the 
gulf, till, as is nearly certain, they turned up one of the wadys on the left, and so 
made their way by the back of the mountain of Seir to the land of Moab on the 
east of the Dead Sea. 

The whole length of the Arabah proper, from the cliffs south of the Dead Sea to 
the head of the Gulf of Akabah, appears to be rather more than 100 miles. In 
breadth it varies. North of Petra, that is, about seventy miles from the Gulf of 
Akabah, it is at its widest, being perhaps from fourteen to sixteen miles across ; 
but it contracts gradually to the south till at the gulf the opening to the sea is but 
four, or, according to some travellers, two miles wide. The mountains which form 
the walls of this vast valley or trench are the legitimate successors of those which 
shut in the Ghor, only in every way grander and more desert- like. On the west 
are the long horizontal lines of the limestone ranges of the Tih, "always faithful 
to their tabular outline and blanched desolation," mounting up from the valley 
by huge steps with level barren tracks on the top of each, and crowned by the 
vast plateau of the " Wilderness of the Wanderings." This western wall ranges 
in height from 1500 to 1800 feet above the floor of the Arabah, and through it 
break in the wadys and passes from the desert above — unimportant toward the 
south, but farther north larger and of more permanent character. The chief of 
these wadys is the Wady-el-Jerafeh, which emerges about sixty miles from Aka- 
bah, and leads its waters, when any are flowing into the Wady-el-Jeib, and through 
it to the marshy ground under the cliffs south of the Dead Sea. 

Two principal passes occur in this range. First, the very steep and difficult 
ascent close to the Akabah, by which the road of the Mecca pilgrims between the 
Akabah and Suez mounts from the valley to the level of the plateau of the Tih. 
It bears apparently no other name than en-Nukb, "the Pass." The second — es- 
Sufah — has a more direct connection with the Bible history, being probably that 
at which the Israelites were repulsed by the Canaanites (Dent. i. 44; Num. xiv. 
43-45). It is on the road from Petra to Hebron, above Ain-el- Weibch, and is not 
like the former, from the Arabah to the plateau, but from the plateau itself to a 
higher level 1000 feet above it. 



160 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




FIHST FRUITS. 

down the Arabah. But at the same time the word of Jehovah came 

to Moses and Aaron that, because they had disobeyed his command 

in the manner of working the miracle, and had thus failed to believe 

and honor him before the people, they should not lead Israel into the 

promised land, nor enter it themselves. The place of the miracle was 

called Meribah (strife), or, more fully, Meribah-Kadah. 

At length the word of Jehovah came to put a term to 
b. c. 1452. . 

their wanderings, by the welcome command to " turn 

northward," that is, we think, up the Ghor, in order to enter the 
promised land by the way followed by the spies round the edge of the 
Dead Sea. In order to secure a peaceable passage by the most ex- 
peditious route, Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom, on whose 
borders they then were, informing him what God had done for Israel, 
and asking leave to pass through his country, as they were both 
descended from Isaac and Rebekah ; and assuring him that they would 
commit no acts of hostility or trespass, but confine themselves to the 
highway during the march, and that they would pay for the water 
they or their animals should drink. The Edomite monarch not only 
refused the request, but assembled his army, which was very formida- 
ble, to defend his frontiers in case the Israelites attempted to force a 
passage. 

The only route now left to the tribes was down the Arabah, and 
following this line they marched from Kadesh to Mount Hor, on the 
borders of the land of Edom — the majestic " mountain of the prophet 
Aaron " (Jebel Nebi-Harun), which stands on the eastern edge of the 
Arabah, above which it rises 4000 feet, having Petra at its eastern 
foot. And now, the time drawing near for the passage of Israel into 



MARCH FROM K A D E S II T 



JORDAN. 161 




NATIONAL SIN-OFFERING. 



the promised land, into which Aaron could not enter because of his 
transgression at Meribah, God gave Aaron notice of his approaching 
death, and commanded Moses to take Aaron and Eleazar his son, 
who was to succeed him in the office of high-priest, to the mount, 
there to strip Aaron of his priestly garments, and put them upon 
Eleazar his son ; which when Moses had done, Aaron died on Mount 
Hor, being 123 years old, and was buried there by the Israelites, who 
mourned for him thirty days. This event is conspicuous in the sac- 
red narrative not only as the death of the brother and colleague of 
Moses, but because it involved the death of the first high-priest, and 
the investiture of his successor. 

Aaron died on the first day of the fifth month from the epoch of 
the Exodus (Ab=Ju\y and August, 1452 B. a), at the age of 123. 
He was therefore born in 1575 b. c, four years before the birth of 
Moses. As the first-born of the house of Amram, the priesthood of 
that house would be a part of his birthright. His natural eloquence 
fitted him to be the organ of Moses in his mission to Egypt; and he 
not only spoke for him, but wrought the miracles at his bidding. 
Throughout the scenes in the desert, he is associated with Moses in 
leading the people; but Moses stands above him as mediator with 
God, and as favored with his direct and open revelations. Even 
11 



162 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

when Aaron is made high-priest, he receives his authority from Moses. 
When left alone to govern the people, he at once yielded to their wil- 
fulness, believing probably that it was a wise concession to give them 
a visible symbol of God's presence ; and so he became the minister of 
idolatry and debauchery. His feeble excuse on this occasion betrays 
that unstable character which could not go alone without his brother ; 
but, as is usual with such characters, he made a rash attempt to assert 
his independence, under the influence of Miriam. On all other occa- 
sions we find him sharing the cares of Moses, and joining even in his 
errors, as in the sin which shut them both out from the promised land. 
It has been well observed that the very defects of Aaron's character, 
and especially his sin and repentance in the matter of the golden calf, 
fitted him the more for the office of a high -priest — " Who can have 
compassion on the ignorant and the erring, for that he himself also is 
compassed with infirmity." And he could also sympathize with deep 
suffering, such as he felt when his sons Nadab and Abihu were slain 
for their sacrilege — " and Aaron held his peace." All these points are 
placed by the Apostle in striking contrast to Christ's priesthood, whose 
perfect and sinless human nature makes him have sympathy without 
infirmity. 

Aaron's wife was named Elisheba. Of his four sons, two survived 
him — Eleazar and Ithamar. The family of the former held the high- 
priesthood till the time of Eli, who belonged to the house of Ithamar. 
The descendants of Eli retained it down to the reign of Solomon, who 
deposed Abiathar, and gave the office to Zadok, of the family of Elea- 
zar. The traditional tomb of Aaron, on one of the two summits of 
Mount Hor, is marked by a Mohammedan chapel, the dome of which 
forms a white spot on the dark red sandstone. 

The march of the Israelites was now down the Arabah, out of which 
they turned by way of Ezion-geber and Elath into the wilderness of 
Moab. The site of Ezion-geber (the Giant's bach-bone) is uncertain : 
we only know that it was at the head of the Gulf of Akabah, and a 
great port for the commerce with the Indian Ocean, which took that 
route in the days of Solomon and Jehoshaphat. It was afterward 
eclipsed by Elath (the palm-t?*ees), which still identify it with the 
iElana of later times, and the modern Akabah. The gulf which bore 
its name of old, as now (Sinus JElaniticus, Gulf of Akabah), yielded 
its importance as a highway of commerce to the Gulf of Suez , in con- 
sequence of the building of Alexandria ; but the beauties of its red 
shores and clear blue waters, filled with red coralline sea-weed, are 
still the same. To this place " the Israelites came on their return 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN. 163 



from Kadesh, and through a gap in the eastern hills they finally 
turned off to Moab. It was a new Red Sea for them : and they little 
knew the glory which it would acquire, when it became the channel 
of all the wealth of Solomon." 

They now finally passed out of the neighborhood of the Red Sea 
into the elevated region which lies to the east of the series of valleys 
that extend from the head of the Gulf of Akabah to the sources of the 
Jordan. Here they found, not the Canaanites whom they were to 
subdue, but tribes kindred to themselves, whom they were forbidden 
to molest ; the descendants of Esau and of Lot. First they skirted 
the eastern side of Mount Seir, the home of the Edomites, who would 
seem to have yielded them, in this direction, the friendly passage 

which they could hardly 
have resisted on the 
open desert. The route 
lay along the margin of 
the great desert of Nejd, 
"and the soul of the 
people was much dis- 
couraged because of the 
way." God punished 
their murmurs by send- 
ing among them ser- 
pents, whose fiery bite 
was fatal. On their 
prayer of repentance a 
remedy was found. 
Moses was commanded 
to make a serpent of brass, whose polished surface shone like fire, and 
to set it up on the banner-pole in the midst of the people; and who- 
ever was bitten by a serpent had but to look up at it and live. In 
recounting the perils of the wilderness, Moses speaks of the " fiery 
serpents and scorpions ;" and these reptiles still abound in the region 
about the Gulf of Akabah. But a far deeper interest belongs to this 
incident of the pilgrimage of Israel. "As Moses lifted up the ser- 
pent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up ; that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." 
Preserved as a relic, whether on the spot of its first erection or else- 
where, the Brazen Serpent, called by the name of Nehushtan, became 
an object of idolatrous veneration, probably in connection with the 
Ophite worship that was adopted in the reign of Ahaz, with all the 




THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



164 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

other idolatries of the neighboring nations ; and the zeal of Hezekiah 
destroyed it with the other idols of his father. But the passion for 
relics is not extinguished by the destruction of its objects. In A. D. 
971, a Milanese envoy to Constantinople, being asked to select a 
present from the imperial treasures, chose a brazen serpent, which the 
Greeks assured him was made of the same metal that Hezekiah had 
broken up ; and this serpent, probably the idol of some Ophite sect, 
is still shown in the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan as that which 
was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness. 

1452 ^ e -^ srae ^ tes were at tn i s ^ me at Punon, whither they 
were come from Zalmonah, their first camp after they re- 
moved from Mount Hor. From Punon they went and encamped at 
Oboth, and thence to Ije-abarim in the desert on the east border of 
Moab. Breaking up their camp here, they marched to Zared, and 
afterward encamped by the River of Arnon, which is in the wilder- 
ness, and runs to the frontiers of the Amorites, dividing the lands of 
Amnion and Moab. From this point the march led to the plains of 
the Jordan opposite to Jericho, and here the thirty-eight years of wan- 
dering ended. Before reaching the Jordan stirring events occurred. 

Having been forbidden by God to molest Moab or Ammon, Moses 
sent a message to Sihon, the warlike king of the Amorites, asking 
permission to pass in peace through his territory, to the point opposite 
Jericho, where the Israelites designed passing the Jordan into the 
promised land, and assured him that his territory and possessions 
should be scrupulously respected. The Amorite monarch, fearing 
doubtless to admit so formidable a body into the heart of his kingdom, 
not only refused the Israelites permission to pass through his land, 
but promptly assembled his forces and marched into the wilderness 
to attack them. The battle took place at Jahaz. It was a decisive 
victory for Israel. Sihon, his sons, and all his people, even to the women 
and children, were slain, and the country passed into the hands of the 
conquerors. This victory was followed up promptly by the capture 
of the strong city of Jaazer, after which the Israelites crossed the 
Jabbok into the territory of Bashan, where the giant Og, another 
Amorite king, reigned. Og reigned over sixty fenced cities in the 
district of Argob, and upon the approach of the Israelites, led out 
his army to dispute their passage. In the bloody battle of Edrei he 
was defeated, and slain with his sons and people. Among the spoil 
was the iron bedstead of Og, 9 cubits long and 4 cubits broad (13J 
feet by 6 ), which was preserved in Rabbath-ammon as a memorial of 
his vast stature; for he was the last of the giant race of the Rephaim, 




105 



166 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

who had dwelt of old in Ashtaroth-Karnairn, the capitol of Og. 
These victories gave to the Israelites the whole region east of the 
Jordan as far as the desert, from the Arnon on the south to Mount 
Herruon or Sirion on the north ; the region soon after allotted to the 
tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 

The host now came to the desert plains of Moab, where they made 
their last encampment east of the Jordan. They pitched their tents 
among the long groves of acacias which cover the topmost of the 
three terraces that here form the basin of the Jordan, and in this delight- 
ful spot they made one of their most important halts. Beyond the 
Jordan they could see the green meadows of Jericho, their first 
intended conquest ; but in a little while their attention was called to 
the appearance of an armed host on the hills of Abarim, which rose 
close behind them. 

The approach of the victorious tribes filled the surrounding nations 
with alarm, and aroused the Moabites out of their doubtful neutrality. 
The Moabitish king, Balak the son of Zippor (the king who had been 
defeated by Sihon), seeing that Israel was too strong for him in the 
open field, made a confederacy with the sheikhs of Midian, several 
of whom appear to have led their Bedouin life within the territories of 
Moab, owing a certain allegiance to the king. It was the united forces 
of these leaders that now appeared on the heights of Abarim. Mean- 
while Balak sought aid from another quarter. 

Balak proposed to his allies that they should send to Balaam, the 
son of Beor, a prophet who dwelt at Pethor, in Mesopotamia, whose 
fame was spread far and wide among the tribes of the desert, and ask 
him to come to the Moabitish camp and curse Israel. Balaam seems 
to have been one of those who retained the worship of the true God, 
by whom he was favored with prophetic visions, but he appears also 
to have practised the more questionable arts of divination, and to 
have made gain of his supernatural knowledge. Balak believed so 
firmly in his marvellous power, that he was convinced that if Balaam 
would but curse Israel, he and his allies could drive them out of the 
land. Therefore, by general consent, the allies selected a number of 
their chief men, and sent them to Balaam with presents, and ordered 
them to deliver, in the name of Balak, the message with which they 
were charged : " Come now, therefore, I pray thee, curse me this 
people, for they are too mighty for me : peradventure I shall pre- 
vail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the 
land ; for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom 
thou cursest is cursed." Upon receiving this message from the king, 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN. 167 

Balaam desired the bearers to tarry with him that night, for he could 

give them no answer till he had consulted the Lord. The temptation 

was too great for Balaam's integrity, for Balak had promised him 

tempting rewards if he would do his will. Both as a prophet, and 

from the fame which had gone abroad concerning Israel, he must 

have known that they were the people of his God, and that it was his 

duty to refuse on the spot any request to curse or threaten them in 

the name of Jehovah. It was his duty to send Balak's messengers 

away at once, but he hesitated, and was lost, but not without repeated 

warnings. When God questioned him concerning the men in his 

house, he answered equivocally, but received the positive command, 

" Thou shalt not go with them, nor curse that people, for they are 

blessed ;" and in the morning he sent the messengers away. 

Balak again sent more numerous and more honorable envoys, 

accompanying his entreaties with promises of rich rewards and great 

honors. Balaam again did wrong in not peremptorily refusing to 

entertain their request, and simply declared that he could not, for all 

the wealth of Balak, exceed the command of God, to whom he again 

referred the case, hoping, doubtless, that God would relent and allow 

him to earn the "wages of unrighteousness." And this time God 

did let him have his own way, thus visiting him with the severest 

punishment which he reserves for the wilful sinner. Balaam was 

commanded to go with the men, but — as he himself had already said 

— to utter only the words that God should put into his mouth ; and 

in all that follows, we see how vainly he strove to break through the 

prescribed limit, and to earn the wages of his apostasy. 

Notwithstanding; this permission to go, God was re- 
b c 1452 . 

solved that Balaam should be warned again by a full 

knowledge of his displeasure. The prophet started off in the morning 

with the princes of Moab ; but as he was on the road, the angel of 

the Lord stood in the way with a drawn sword in his hand. Blinded 

by his eagerness to gain the wages of his impiety, Balaam did not 

see the angel, but it pleased God to give the ass on which the prophet 

rode, such quickness of sight, that she both saw the angel and shunned 

him by turning out of the road into the field. Balaam struck the 

ass sharply, and turned her into the road again, and as he did so the 

angel stood in another narrow way between two walls which enclosed 

some vineyards. The ass, seeing the angel, swerved against the wall, 

and crushed Balaam's foot. This so incensed him that he beat her 

again. Then the angel went and stood in a place so narrow that 

the ass could not turn, and the poor beast fell down under him. 



168 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



At this Balaam flew into a passion, and beat her violently with 
his staff. 

God now rebuked the wilfulness of the prophet by miraculously 
giving the ass the power of speech, and she said to her rider, " What 
have I done to thee, that thou shouldest beat me these three times ?" 
" Because," said he, " thou hast deserved it, in mocking me : had I a 
sword in my hand I would kill thee." The ass replied, "Am I not 
thine ass, upon which thou hast been used to ride ever since I was 
thine ; did I ever serve thee so before ?" He answered, " No." 
Such an incident might have alarmed a mind less prepossessed than 
that of Balaam, which remained blinded, till God himself opened 
his eyes, and let him see the angel standing in the way with his 
sword drawn in his hand ; at the sight of which, he bowed himself 
down, and fell on his face. The angel expostulated with him, and 

told him his undertaking 
was perverse, in attempt- 
ing to go against the ex- 
press command of God, 
and that, therefore, he 
was come to stop him : 
and, but for his ass, 
which he had so barbar- 
ously abused, he had slain 
him. 

Balaam, self-convicted, 
acknowledged his crime, 
and offered to return 
home again, if so be his 
journey was displeasing to God. However, the Lord resolved out 
of this man's wicked inclination to raise some advantage ; and, there- 
fore, since he was gone so far, he would not send him back, but 
make him, who was hired to curse, be the instrument of pronouncing 
a blessing on his people. 

Having thus chastised Balaam on the way, he suffered him to go 
on ; but with this charge, that he should only speak what God should 

tell him. 

Balaam then went on his journey with the princes of Moab ; and 
when Balak understood that Balaam was coming, that he might the 
more oblige him by personal civilities, he came out to meet him 
(himself receiving him upon the confines of his dominion). At their 
meeting, the king in a friendly manner blamed Balaam for refusing 




THE HIGH-PRIEST. 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN. 169 




SIN-OFFERING OF THE POOK. 



to come to him upon his first sending, since it was in his power to 
advance him. But Balaam, to excuse himself, let him know what 
restraint the Lord had laid upon him. Then entertaining him pub- 
licly with his princes and great men that day, the next day he brought 
him up into the high places of Baal, that from thence he might take 
a view of the camp of Israel. 

Whilst they were here, the prophet directed the king to order seven 
altars to be erected for him ; and seven oxen, with seven rams, to be 
prepared ; which being done, they both together offered an ox and a 
ram upon each altar. Then leaving Balak to stand by his burnt- 
offering, Balaam withdrew to consult the Lord, who met and in- 
structed him what to say ; and returning to Balak, whom he found 
standing at the altar, and the princes of Moab with him, he thus 
addressed himself to them : " Thou hast caused me, O king, to come 
from Aram, out of the mountains of the east to curse the family of 
Jacob, and bid defiance to Israel. But how shall I curse those whom 
God hath not cursed ? and how shall I defy those whom the Lord 
hath not defied ? From the top of the rocks I see their protector^ 
and from the hills I behold him. Behold, this people shall be sepa- 
rated to God, and distinguished from all other people in religion, 
laws, and course of life; they shall not be reckoned among the 
nations." Then setting forth the prosperity and increase of Israel, 
he wished that his lot might be with them in life and death. 

Balak, as much alarmed as incensed at the prophecy of Balaam, so 
contrary to his expectation, passionately inquired, — " What hast thou 
done? I sent for thee to curse mine enemies, and thou hast blessed 



170 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

them." Balaam excused himself by the necessity of his instructions, 
from which at this time it was not in his power to deviate. 

However, as Balak was not discouraged ; from the change of the 
place he hoped a change of fortune or better success ; and, therefore, 
taking Balaam into the field of Zophim to the top of Pisgah, he tried 
whether he could curse from thence. 

Balaam, who was willing to please him, had seven altars there, 
and a bullock and a ram offered on each. Then withdrawing again, 
as before, to consult the Lord, he received fresh instructions. Balak 
now began to understand the interview between the Lord and 
Balaam ; and upon his return to him and his attendants, who were 
big with expectation of the result, demanded what the Lord had 
spoken ? Upon which Balaam, to bespeak the greater attention and 
regard to what he should say, began thus : " Consider, O Balak, thou 
son of Zippor, consider that God, who hath already blessed Israel, 
and forbidden me to curse them, is not like a man, that he should 
renounce his promise, or repent of what he does. Hath he promised, 
and shall he not perform? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not 
make it good ? Behold I have received commission to bless, and he 
hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He does not approve of 
afflictions or outrages against the posterity of Jacob, nor of vexation 
or trouble against the posterity of Israel. The Lord his God is with 
him, and the shout of a king is in him. God hath brought him out 
of Egypt ; he hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn. Surely 
no enchantment can prevail against Jacob, nor any divination against 
Israel. So that considering what God shall work this time for the 
deliverance of his people, all the world shall wonder, and say, what 
hath God wrought! who hath put his people out of the reach of 
fraud or force, and turned the intended curse into a blessing. And 
to show their future strength and success, the people shall rise up as a 
great lion, and lift up themselves as a young lion : they shall not lie 
down until they eat of the prey, and drink of the blood of the slain." 
% Balak was so incensed at this peremptory prophecy of the immedi- 
ate interposition of providence in favor of God's chosen people, that 
he forbade Balaam to exercise his prophetic talent ; though soon after 
his eagerness to have Israel cursed made him change his mind ; for 
he called for Balaam, and entreated him to try another place, in hopes 
God would permit him to curse Israel. Hereupon Balaam followed 
Balak to the top of Mount Peor, a hill that looked towards the wil- 
derness. 

Whatsoever ground Balak might have for his hopes, it is certain 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN, m 

Balaam knew the positive will of God in this case was to bless and not 
to curse ; and this he had declared to be irreversible, when he told 
Balak God was not like fickle man. Yet stimulated with the blind 
desire of reward, he consented to Balak to tempt the Lord 
afresh; for he there erected seven altars and laid seven sacrifices 
thereon. 

But having in vain tried all his arts of divination, and seeing that 
God was resolved to continue blessing Israel (without withdrawing, 
as before, under pretence to consult the Lord), looking on the camp 
of Israel, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he cried out in 
an ecstasy, " How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, 
O Israel !" Then by significant metaphors, he foretold the extent, 
fertility, and strength of Israel ; and those that blessed them should 
be blessed, and those that cursed 
them should be cursed. 

Balak now upbraided Balaam 
with deceit and falsehood, and smit- 
ing his hands together, being no 
longer able to restrain his rage, bade 
him haste and be gone ; " For I 
thought/' said he, " to have promoted 
thee to great honor, if thou hadst 
answered my design in cursing 
Israel, but the Lord hath hindered 
thy preferment." 

Balaam had recourse to balaam and balak. 

Vjen 'fite-i his old excuse, that he 
14:02-1451. 7 

could not exceed the commands of the Lord, but must 
speak what he put in his mouth. And though he was willing to 
gratify the king of Moab in some sort, and perhaps (considering his 
covetous temper) to entitle himself to some reward, he offered to ad- 
vertise them now at parting, what the Israelites should do to his peo- 
ple in the latter days. But still, against his own inclination, he be- 
stowed blessings on Israel, and prophesied a star should come forth 
from Jacob, and a rod from Israel ; that it should smite the chiefs of 
Moab, and destroy the children of Seth ; that Edom should fall under 
its power ; and that the Amalekites and Kenites should be extirpated. 
In fine, he foretold that the western nations, the Greeks and Romans, 
should vanquish the Assyrians, destroy the Hebrews, and perish them- 
selves. 

But the monstrous wickedness of this man is further apparent ; for 




1Y2 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

after these predictions, as if vexed at his own disappointment in mis- 
sing the reward he expected, and to be revenged on the Israelites as 
the occasion of it, he instructed the Moabites and Midianitea in a 
wicked artifice ; which was to send their daughters to the camp of the 
Israelites, to draw those people into idolatry ; the sure method to de- 
prive them of the assistance of God, who protected them. This arti- 
fice succeeded ; for the next account we have of the Israelites is, that 
they lay encamped at Shittim ; where many of them were deluded by 
the Moabitish and Midianitish Avomen, and were drawn in, not only to 
commit whoredom with them, but to assist at their sacrifices, and wor- 
ship their gods, even Baal-peor. 

But God, who hated sin in his chosen people, suffered not their ini- 
quity to go unpunished ; for he showed terrible resentment against 
both their atrocious crimes, commanding Moses to take the chiefs 
of those that had joined themselves to Baal-peor, and hang them up 
before the Lord in the sight of all the people. 

Moses accordingly gave charge to the judges of Israel to see execu- 
tion done on the men under their charge that sacrificed to Baal-peor. 
But the divine justice did not stop here. Their whoredom must be 
punished as well as their idolatry ; which was aggravated vastly by a 
person of considerable rank and dignity. 

Bold Zimri, the son of Salu, prince of a chief house among the Si- 
meonites, took Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, who was also a prince of a 
chief house in Midian, and daringly brought her to the Israelitish 
camp in contempt of Moses, and in sight of the congregation, who, 
because of the late execution done upon their princes, stood weeping 
before the door of the tabernacle; and leading her openly into his tent, 
there lay with her. 

This superlative impudence and open violation of God's law, none 
offered to resent, but Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, who, rising up from 
the congregation, and filled with a divine zeal, took a javelin in his 
hand, and followed them to the tent ; where, in the very act of whore- 
dom, he thrust them both through. 

This zealous act Of Phinehas put a stop to the plague, which God 
sent among the people for this audacious act of Zimri, and the other 
lewdness and impieties of his comrades. However, there died on this 
occasion no less than four and twenty thousand. Phinehas's holy 
zeal for God's honor gained him not only a high commendation, but 
a perpetual settlement of the priesthood on himself and his posterity. 

These disorders thus quieted, and the offenders punished, the next 
thing was to take vengeance of the Midianites, who had debauched 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN. 17*3 



the Israelites with their idolatries and whoredoms. To effect this, 
Moses commanded a detachment of twelve thousand picked men, a 
thousand from each tribe, to march against the Midianites ; and with 
this force went the zealous Phinehas, who carried with him the holy 
instruments or trumpets, to animate the people. 

Such was the exertion of the divine power in behalf of the Israel- 
ites, that though very inferior in numbers, they slew five kings and 
all their men; and among the slain was the wicked prophet Balaam. 
The cities of Midian were taken and burned, and immense quantities 
of spoil taken, and the women who had been saved alive were slain 
by the command of Moses, the female children only being spared. 
At the same time a law was made for the equitable division of the 
spoil between those who went forth to battle, and those who remained 
in the camp. 

Before this war another census had been taken, by which the num- 
ber was found to be 



was 
about the same as before 
Sinai, thirty-eight and a 
half years before (the 
exact decrease was 820) ; 
and Joshua was conse- 
crated by the high-priest 
Eleazar to be the suc- 
cessor of Moses. 

The Israelites thus 
taking possession of the 
country on this side 
Jordan, the tribes of 
Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, observing it to be 
a fertrle soil, and good pasturage, desired of Moses that they might 
settle in that country, upon condition that they should march with 
the other tribes to conquer the land where they were to settle ; that 
they would not return till the others were in possession ; and that 
they would claim no part of the lands that were beyond Jordan. 

Moses, at first, thought they intended to venture no farther, but 
had a mind to sit down in a country ready gained, and leave their 
brethren, the rest of the tribes. Upon which he blamed them for 
offering such a proposal to discourage the rest of the Israelites; but 
when he understood their real design, upon condition they performed 
their promise, he granted their request. In the final account of the 
settlement of the country, we read how faithfully the two tribes and a 




GATHERING MANNA. 



174 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

half performed their promise. Still, they can hardly be acquitted of 
a certain selfish grasping at present advantage ; and their fault brought 
its own punishment, for their position exposed them to attack, and 
they were the first of the Israelites who were carried into captivity. 

Moses then enumerated the several stations and removes which the 
children of Israel made from Barneses in Egypt, to the river Jordan 
in Canaan, and described the bounds of the promised land, and gave 
the names of the persons appointed to divide it among the tribes of 
Israel. 

Orders were afterward given, that the children of Israel should 
assign to the Levites eight and fortv cities, with suburbs to them, in 
which the Levites might live among the tribes, and of which number, 
six were appointed to be cities of refuge for the manslayer to fly to, 
who had happened to kill a man by chance. 

But provision was made that he who should be duly convicted of 
wilful murder, should be put to death ; and in capital cases it was 
provided, that none should be convicted of such crimes by the evi- 
dence of one single man. 

There was a law likewise made, that even* daughter, who should 
possess an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel, should be 
married to one of the tribes of her father, that so the children of Israel 
might enjoy every one the inheritance of his father: and the inherit- 
ance not to be transferred to another tribe. This was grounded upon 
a law made before, which empowered daughters to inherit land, where 
the heirs male should be deficient ; and was the case of Zelophehad's 
daughters, who, upon obtaining this act, were required to marry within 
the family of their own father's tribe. 

The work of Moses was now finished : he had already 
received the command of God to ascend Mount Abarim, 
and view the land into which he must not enter, and his successor had 
been solemnly ordained. But before his death, however, he assembled 
the people of Israel, on the first day of the eleventh month, in the 
fortieth year from their departure out of Egypt, (the people being yet 
in the plains of Moab by Jordan, and near Jericho J and repeated to 
them briefly all that had befallen their fathers since they left Egypt, 
the gracious dealings of God with them, their unruliness, disobedience, 
and rebellions, which had so often provoked the Lord to punish them, 
and by which means they brought upon them that grievous sentence, 
" That they should not enter into that good land." Then he repeated 
the decalogue, and divers other laws and precepts, formerly given, 
though not without some variation, with the addition of some new 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN. 1?5 

laws on divers subjects,* and some explanations of the old; exhorting 
them to a strict observation of them, promising that they should soon 
enter into the land of Canaan, and also commanded them to destroy all 
the idols of the inhabitants of the country, and to extirpate the people. 

He encouraged them to be faithful unto God, assuring them, if they 
kept his commandments,. they should have blessings heaped upon them, 
and threatened them with all manner of calamities, if they departed 
from them. He renewed the covenant with the people in the name 
of the Lord ; commanding them with a loud voice, to proclaim on the 
mountains of Gerizim and Ebal, beyond Jordan, blessings to all those 
who kept the covenant, and curses to those who broke it : and to erect 
an altar in the land of Ganaan, on which they should write the terms 
and conditions of their covenant with God. 

These things, with rehearsals sometimes of their fathers', and their 
own prevarications, Moses not only delivered to the people by word 
of mouth, but wrote them in a book, which he gave into the custody 
and care of the Levites, with direction from the Lord, that they should 
put it into the side of the ark, to be kept there for a witness against 
Israel, if they should rebel. 

Besides this, Moses, by the immediate direction of God, composed 
a song, in which were at large described, by the many benefits and 
favors of God to his people, their ingratitude to, and forgetfulness of 
him ; the punishments by which he corrected them, with threatening 
of greater judgments, if they persisted to provoke him by a repetition 
of their follies. 

This song Moses recited to the people, and gave order that they 
should learn it, and repeat it often ; that when for their transgressing 
the law, many calamities and troubles should befall them, this song 
might be a witness for God against them. 

Moses now received the final summons for his departure. But 
first, he uttered, not now as the legislator and teacher of his people, 
but as the prophet, wrapped in the visions of the future, his blessing 
on the twelve tribes. 

"And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain 
of Nebo (the head), the summit of Pisgah (the heights), that is over 
against Jericho. And Jehovah showed him all the land of Gilead 
unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, 
and all the land of Judah, even unto the utmost sea, and the south, 
and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto 
Zoar." Thus minutely does the supplement to the Book of Deuter- 

* See Appendix I. at the close of the volume. 



116 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

onomy describe the scene which lay open before Moses, when he was 
alone with God upon the sacred mountain of the Moabites ; embracing 
the four great masses of the inheritance on the east, the north, the 
centre, and the south, with the plain that lay at his feet. Not that 
his eye, though still undiinmed by his thrice forty years, could lite- 
rally behold all that is here named : " the foreground of the picture 
alone was clearly discernible ; its dim distances were to be supplied 
by what was beyond, though suggested by what was within, the range 
of the actual prospect of the seer." After receiving the last assurance 
that this was the land promised to Abraham and his seed, " Moses 
the servant of Jehovah died there in the land of Moab, according to 
the word of Jehovah." God himself buried^him "in a ravine before 
Bethpeor," in front of the very sanctuary of " the abomination of the 
Moabites." The allusion of St. Jude seems to imply that the fallen 
angel, who was really worshipped there, disputed this invasion of his 
sanctuary with the "divine prince, the chief of the angels" (Michael, 
the archangel), who rebuked him with the same calm authority which 
he used on the mount of the temptation. Another ,and a different 
profanation, by the idolatrous zeal of later ages for the so-called 
" Holy Places," was guarded against by the concealment of the spot ; 
and we almost shrink from mentioning the absurd attempt to contra- 
dict the mystery by the rude mosque, on the opposite side of the Dead 
Sea, which pretends to mark " the tomb of the prophet Moses." That 
of him which it was really left for posterity to seek, besides the record 
of his deeds, was his living likeness in the prophet whom God prom- 
ised to raise up of his brethren, as he had raised up him, even Christ. 
The children of Israel mourned for Moses in the plains 
of Moab thirty days; and they rendered obedience to 
Joshua, the son of Nun, on whom Moses had laid his hands, and who 
was full of the spirit of wisdom. 

In portraying the character of Moses, we avail ourselves of the 
graphic description of Dean Stanley: 

It has sometimes been attempted to reduce this great character into 
a mere passive instrument of the Divine Will, as though he had him- 
self borne no conscious part in the actions in which he figures, or the 
messages which he delivers. This, however, is as incompatible with 
the general tenor of the scriptural account, as it is with the common 
language in which he has been described by the church in all ages. 
The frequent addresses of the Divinity to him no more contravene his 
personal activity and intelligence, than in the case of Elijah, Isaiah, 
or St, Paul. In the New Testament the Mosaic legislation is especi- 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN. 177 

ally ascribed to him : — " Moses gave you circumcision." " Moses, 
because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you." " Did not 
Moses give you the law ?" " Moses accuseth you." St. Paul speaks 
of him as the founder of the Jewish religion : " They were all bap- 
tized unto Moses" He is constantly called " a Prophet." In the 
poetical language of the Old Testament, and in the popular language 
both of Jews and Christians, he is known as " the lawgiver." He 
must be considered, like all the saints and heroes of the Bible, as a 
man of marvellous gifts, raised up by Divine Providence for a special 
purpose ; but as led into a closer communion with the invisible world 
than was vouchsafed to any other in the Old Testament. 

There are two main characters in which he appears, as a leader and 
as a prophet. 

I. C. his natural gifts as a Leader, we have but few means of judg- 
ing. The two main difficulties which he encountered were the reluc- 
tance of the people to submit to his guidance, and the impracticable 
nature of the country which they had to traverse. The patience with 
which he bore their murmurs has been described — at the Red Sea, at 
the apostasy of the golden calf, at the rebellion of Korah, at the com- 
plaints of Aaron and Miriam. On approaching Palestine, the office 
of the leader becomes blended with that of the general or the conque- 
ror. By Moses the spies were sent to explore the country. Against 
his advice took place the first disastrous battle at Hormah. To his 
guidance is ascribed the circuitous route by which the nation approached 
Palestine from the east, and to his generalship the two successful 
campaigns in which Sihon and Og were defeated. The narrative is 
told so shortly, that we are in danger of forgetting that at this last 
stage of his life Moses must have been as much a conqueror and vic- 
torious soldier as Joshua. 

II. His character as a Prophet is, from the nature of the case, more 
distinctly brought out. He is the first as he is the greatest example 
of a prophet in the Old Testament. The name is indeed applied to 
Abraham before, but so casually as not to enforce our attention. But, 
in the case of Moses, it is given with peculiar emphasis. In a certain 
sense, he appears as the centre of a prophetic circle, now for the first 
time named. His brother and sister were both endowed with pro- 
phetic gifts. Aaron's fluent speech enabled him to act the part of 
prophet for Moses in the first instance, and Miriam is expressly called 
"the Prophetess." The seventy elders, and Eldad and Medad also, 
all "prophesied." But Moses (at least after the Exodus) roso high 
above all these. The others are spoken of as more or less inferior, 

12 • 



178 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Their communications were made to them in dreams and figures. 
But " Moses was not so." With him the divine revelations were 
made, " mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, 
and the similitude of Jehovah shall he behold." 

The prophetic office of Moses, however, can only be fully consid- 
ered in connection with his whole character and appearance. " By a 
prophet Jehovah brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was 
he preserved." He was in a sense peculiar to himself the founder 
and representative of his people. And, in accordance with this com- 
plete identification of himself with his nation, is the only strong 
personal trait which we are able to gather from his history. " The 
man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the 
face of the earth." The word "meek" is hardly an adequate reading 
of the Hebrew term, which should be rather " much enduring ;" and, 
in fact, his onslaught on the Egyptian, and his sudden dashing the 
tables on the ground, indicate rather the reverse of what we should 
call " meekness." It represents what we should now designate by the 
word " disinterested." All that is told of him indicates a withdrawal 
of himself, a preference of the cause of his nation to his own interests, 
which makes him the most complete example of Jewish patriotism. 
He joins his countrymen in their degrading servitude. He forgets 
himself to avenge their wrongs. He desires that his brother may 
take the lead instead of himself. He wishes that not he only, but all 
the nation, were gifted alike : — " Enviest thou for my sake?" When 
the offer is made that the people should be destroyed, and that he 
should be made "a great nation," he prays that they may be forgiven 
— " if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast 
written." His sons were not raised to honor. The leadership of the 
people passed, after his death, to another tribe. In the books which 
bear his name, Abraham, and not himself, appears as the real father 
of the nation. In spite of his great pre-eminence, they are never 
" the children of Moses." 

In the New Testament Moses is spoken of as a likeness of Christ; 
and, as this is a point of view which has been almost lost in the 
church, compared with the more familiar comparisons of Christ to 
Adam, David, Joshua, and yet has as firm a basis in fact as any of 
them, it may be well to draw it out in detail. 

1. Moses is, as it would seem, the only character of the Old Testa- 
ment to whom Christ expressly likens himself — " Moses wrote of 
me." It is uncertain to what passage our Lord alludes, but the gene- 
ral opinion seems to be the true one — that it is the remarkable 



MARCH FROM KADESH TO JORDAN. 1?9 

prediction — " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet 
from the midst of thee, from thy brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye 
shall hearken. . . I will raise them up a prophet from among their 
brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth ; and he 
shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall 
come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which 
he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." This passage 
is also expressly quoted by Stephen, and it is probably in allusion to 
it, that at the transfiguration, in the presence of Moses and Elijah, 
the words were uttered, " Hear ye Him." It suggests three main 
points of likeness : — (a.) Christ was, like Moses, the great prophet of 
the people — the last, as Moses was the first. In greatness of position, 
none came between them. (6.) Christ, like Moses, is a lawgiver: 
" Him shall ye hear." (c.) Christ, like Moses, was a prophet out of 
the midst of the nation — " from their brethren." As Moses was the 
entire representative of his people, feeling for them more than for 
himself, absorbed in their interests, hopes, and fears, so, with reverence 
be it said, was Christ. 

2. In Hebrews and Acts Christ is described, though more ob- 
scurely, as the Moses of the new dispensation — as the apostle, or 
messenger, or mediator, of God to the people — as the controller and 
leader of the flock or household of God. 

3. The details of their lives are sometimes, though not often, com- 
pared. Stephen dwells, evidently with this view, on the likeness of 
Moses in striving to act as a peacemaker, and misunderstood and 
rejected on that very account. The death of Moses suggests the 
ascension of Christ ; and the retardation of the rise of the Christian 
Church, till after its founder was withdrawn, gives a moral as well as 
a material resemblance. But this, though dwelt upon in the services 
of the Church, has not been expressly laid down in the Bible. 



180 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



BOOK IV. 

joshua to saul; or, transition from the theocracy to 

the monarchy, 
[a. m. 2553—2948. b. c 1451—1095.] 



CHAPTER XII, 



THE GEOGRAPHY OP THE HOLY LAND. 




EFOPE accompanying the Israelites into the Land of Promisp, 
it will be well to take a brief survey of its physical features, 
since they exercised an important influence upon the history 
of the chosen people. But first as to its name. 

The name of the " Holy Land," which has been most 
frequently used to designate the country from the Middle Ages down 
to our own time, occurs but once in Scripture. The name of " Pales- 
tina " or " Palestine/' which was applied to the country soon after 
the Christian era, is used in Scripture as equivalent to " Philistia," or 
the land of the Philistines. The ordinary names by which the land 
is designated in the Bible are the following ; — 

(1.) During the Patriarchal Period, the Conquest, and the Age of 
the Judges, and also where those early periods are referred to in the 
later literature, it is spoken of as " Canaan," or more frequently "the 
land of Canaan," meaning thereby " the country west of the Jordan," 
as opposed to " the land of Gilead " on the east. 

(2.) During the Monarchy the name usually, though not frequently, 
employed, is "the land of Israel." It is EzekiePs favorite expres- 
sion. The pious and loyal aspirations of Hosea find vent in the 
expression " land of Jehovah." In Zechariah it is, as we have 
already seen, "the Holy Land ;" and in Daniel "the glorious land." 
Occasionally it appears to be mentioned simply as " the land ;" as in 
Ruth i. 1 ; Jer. xxii. 27 ; 1 Mace. xiv. 4 ; Luke iv. 25, and, perhaps, 
even xxiii. 44. 

(3.) Between the Captivity and the time of our Lord the name 
"Judaea" had extended itself from the southern portion to the whole 
of the country, even that beyond Jordan. In the Book of Judith it 
is applied to the portion between the plain of Esdraelon and Samaria, 



GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND. 181 

as it is in Luke; though it is also used in the stricter sense of 
Judaea proper, that is, the most southern of the three main divisions 
west of Jordan. In this narrower sense it is employed throughout 
the 1st Book of Maccabees. 

(4.) The Roman division of the country hardly coincided with the 
biblical one, and it does not appear that the Romans had any distinct 
name for that which we understand by Palestine. 

The Holy Land is not in size or physical characteristics propor- 
tioned to its moral and historical position, as the theatre of the most 
momentous events in the world's history. It is but a strip of country 
about the size of Wales, less than 140 miles in length, and barely 
40 in average breadth, on the very frontier of the east, hemmed in 
between the Mediterranean Sea on the one hand, and the enormous 
trench of the Jordan Valley on the other, by which it is effectually 
cut off from the main-land of Asia behind it. On the north it is 
shut in by the high ranges of Lebanon and Ante-Lebanon, and by 
the chasm of the Litany. On the south it is no less enclosed by the 
arid and inhospitable deserts of the upper part of the Peninsula of 
Sinai. 

Its position on the map of the world — as the world was when the 
Holy Land first made its appearance in history — is a remarkable one. 
(1.) It is on the very outpost — on the extremest western edge of the 
East. On the shore of the Mediterranean it stands, as if it had 
advanced as far as possible toward the West, separated therefrom by 
that which, when the time arrived, proved to be no barrier, but the 
readiest medium of communication — the wide waters of the " Great 
Sea." Thus it was open to all the gradual influences of the rising 
communities of the West, while it was saved from the retrogression 
and decrepitude which have ultimately been the doom of all purely 
Eastern States whose connections were limited to the East only. 
(2.) There was, however, one channel, and but one, by which it 
could reach and be reached by the great Oriental empires. The only 
road by which the two great rivals of the ancient world could 
approach one another — by which alone Egypt could get to Assyria, 
and Assyria to Egypt — lay along the broad flat strip of coast which 
formed the maritime portion of the Holy Land, and thence by the 
plain of the Lebanon to the Euphrates. (3.) After this, the Holy 
Land became (like the Netherlands in Europe) the convenient arena 
on which, in successive ages, the hostile powers who contended for 
the empire of the East fought their battles. 

It is essentially a mountainous country. Not that it contains inde- 



182 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




MOUNT LEBANON. 



pendent mountain chains, as in Greece, for example, but that every 
part of the highland is in greater or less undulation. But it is not 
only a mountainous country. The mass of hills which occupies the 
centre of the country is bordered or framed on both sides, east and 
west, by a broad belt of lowland, sunk deep below its own level. 
The slopes or cliffs which form, as it were, the retaining walls of this 
depression, are furrowed and cleft by the torrent beds which discharge 
the waters of the hills, and form the means of communication between 
the upper and lower level. On the west this lowland interposes be- 
tween the mountains and the sea, and is the Plain of Philistia 
and of Sharon. On the east it is the broad bottom of the Jordan 
Valley, deep down in which rushes the one river of Palestine to its 
grave in the Dead Sea. Such is the first general impression of the 
physiognomy of the Holy Land. It is a physiognomy compounded 
of the three main features already named — the plains, the highland 
hills, and the torrent beds ; features which are marked in the words 
of its earliest describers, and which must be comprehended by every 
one who wishes to understand the country, and the intimate connec- 
tion existing between its structure and its history. 

About half-way up the coast the maritime plain is suddenly inter- 
rupted by a long ridge thrown out from the central mass, rising 



GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND. 183 

considerably above the general level, and terminating in a bold 
promontory on the very edge of the Mediterranean. This ridge is 
Mount Carmel. On its upper side, the plain, as if to compensate 
for its temporary displacement, invades the centre of the country and 
forms an undulating hollow right across it from the Mediterranean to 
the Jordan Valley. This central lowland, which divides with its 
broad depression the mountains of Ephraim from the mountains of 
Galilee, is the Plain of Esdraelou or Jezreel, the great battle-field of 
Palestine. North of Carmel the lowland resumes its position by the 
sea-side till it is again interrupted, and finally put an end to, by the 
northern mountains which push their way out of the sea, ending in 
the white promontory of the Rhas Nakhura. Above this is the 
ancient Phoenicia. Behind Phoenicia — north of Esdraelou, and en- 
closed between it, the Litany, and the upper Valley of the Jordan — 
is a continuation of the mountain district, rising gradually in occa- 
sional elevation until it reaches the main ranges of Lebanon and 
Ante-Lebanon (or Hermon), as from their lofty heights they overlook 
the whole land below them. 

The country thus roughly portrayed, and which, as before stated, is 
less than 140 miles in length, and not more than forty in average 
breadth, is, to all intents and purposes, the whole land of Israel. The 
northern portion is Galilee; the centre, Samaria, the south, 
Judaea. This is the land of Canaan which was bestowed on Abra- 
ham ; the covenanted home of his descendants. The two tribes and a 
half remained on the uplands beyond Jordan ; and the result was, that 
these tribes soon ceased to have any close connection with the others, 
or to form any virtual part of the nation. But even this definition 
might without further impropriety be further circumscribed ; for 
during the greater part of the Old Testament times the chief events 
of the history were confined to the districts south of Esdraelou, which 
contained the cities of Hebron, Jerusalem, Bethel, Shiloh, Shechem, 
and Samaria, the Mount of Olives, and Mount Carmel. The battles 
of the Conquest and the early struggles of the era of the Judges once 
passed, Galilee subsided into obscurity and unimportance till the time 
of Christ. 

The highland district, surrounded and intersected by its broad low- 
land plains, preserves from north to south a remarkably even and 
horizontal profile. Its average height may be taken as 1500 to L800 
feet above the Mediterranean. It can hardly be denominated a pla- 
teau, yet so evenly is the general level preserved, and so thickly <1<> 
the hills stand behind and between one another, that when seen from 



184 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the coast or the maritime plain, it has quite the appearance of a Avail. 
This general monotony of profile is, however, accentuated at intervals 
by certain centres of elevation. Between these elevated points runs 
the water-shed of the country, sending off on either hand — to the 
Jordan valley on the east, and the Mediterranean on the west — the 
long tortuous arms of its many torrent beds. The valleys on the 
two sides of the water-shed differ considerably in character. Those 
on the east are extremely steep and rugged. This is the case during 
the whole length of the southern and middle portions of the country. 
It is only when the junction between the plain of Esdraelon and the 
Jordan valley is reached, that the slopes become gradual and the 
ground fit for the manoeuvres of anything but detached bodies of foot 
soldiers. But, rugged and difficult as they are, they form the only 
access to the upper country from this side ; and every man, or body 
of men, who reached the territory of Judah, Benjamin, or Ephraim, 
from the Jordan valley, must have climbed one or other of them. 
The western valleys are more gradual in their slope. The level of 
the external plain on this side is higher, and therefore the fall less, 
while at the same time the distance to be traversed is much greater. 
Here, again, the valleys are the only means of communication between 
the lowland and the highland. From Jaffa and the central part of 
the plain, there are two of these roads " going up to Jerusalem ;" the 
one to the right by Ramleh and the Wady Aly ; the other to the left 
by Lydda, and thence by the Beth-horons, or the Wady Suleiman, 
and Gibeon. The former of these is modern, but the latter is the 
scene of many a famous incident in ancient history. 

When the highlands of the country are more closely examined, a 
considerable difference will be found to exist in the natural condition 
and appearance of their different portions. The south, as being 
nearer the arid desert, arid farther removed from the drainage of the 
mountains, is drier and less productive than the north. The tract 
below Hebron, which forms the link between the hills of Judah and 
the desert, was known to the ancient Hebrews by a term originally 
derived from its dryness (Negeb). This was the south country. 
As the traveller advances north of this tract there is an improvement; 
but perhaps no country equally cultivated is more monotonous, bare, 
or uninviting in its aspect, than a great part of the highlands of Judah 
and Benjamin during the largest portion of the year. The spring 
covers even those bald, gray rocks with verdure and color, and fills 
the ravines with torrents of rushing: water ; but in summer and au- 
tumn the look of the country from Hebron up to Bethel is very dreary 



GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND. 1S5 




THE DEAD SEA. 



and desolate. At Jerusalem this reaches its climax. To the west 
and northwest of the highlands, where the sea-breezes are felt, there 
is considerably more vegetation. 

Hitherto we have spoken of the central and northern portions of 
Judeea. Its eastern portion — a tract some nine or ten miles in width, 
by about thirty-five in length — which intervenes between the centre 
and the abrupt descent to the Dead Sea, is far more wild and desolate, 
and that not for a portion of the year only, but throughout it. This 
must have been always what it is now — an uninhabited desert, be- 
cause uninhabitable. 

No descriptive sketch of this part of the country can be complete 
which does not allude to the caverns, characteristic of all limestone 
districts, but here existing in astonishing numbers. Every hill and 
ravine is pierced with them, some very large, and of curious forma- 
tion — perhaps partly natural, partly artificial — others mere grottoes. 
Many of them are connected with most important and interesting 
events of the ancient history of the country. Especially is this true 
of the district now under consideration. Machpclah, Makkedah, 
Adullam, Engedi, names inseparably connected with the lives, ad- 
ventures, and deaths of Abraham, Joshua, David, and other Old 
Testament worthies, are all within the small circle of the territory of 
JudaBa. Moreover, there is perhaps hardly one of these caverns, how- 
ever small, which has not at some time or other furnished a hiding- 



1S6 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




VIEW OF XABLUS AXD MOTTXT GEEIZIM FKOM THE NORTH-WEST. 

place to some ancient Hebrew from the sweeping incursions of Philis- 
tine or Amalekite. 

The bareness and dryness which prevail more or less in Judaea are 
owing partly to the absence of the wood, partly to its proximity to 
the desert, and partly to a scarcity of water, arising from its distance 
from the Lebanon. But to this discouraging aspect there are some 
important exceptions. The valley of Urtds, south of Bethlehem, con- 
tains springs which in abundauce and excellence rival even those of 
NaMus; the huge " Pools of Solomon " are enough to supply a district 
for many miles round them ; and the cultivation now going on in that 
neighborhood shows what might be done with a soil which requires 
onlv irrigation and a moderate amount of labor to evoke a boundless 
produce. 

It is obvious that in the ancient days of the nation, when Judah 
and Benjamin possessed the teeming population indicated in the Bible, 
the condition and aspect of the country must have been very differ- 
ent. Of this there are not wanting sure evidences. There is no 
country in which the ruined towns bear so large a proportion to those 
still existing. Hardly a hill-top of the many within sight that is not 
covered with vestiges of some fortress or city. But, besides this, for- 
ests appear to have stood in many parts of Judaea until the repeated 
invasions and sieges caused their fall ; and all this vegetation must 
have reacted on the moisture of the climate, and, by preserving the 
water in many a ravine and natural reservoir where now it is rapidly 



GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND. 187 




THE SYRIAN OX. 



dried by the fierce sun of the early summer, must have influenced 
materially the look and the resources of the country. 

Advancing northward from Judaea, the country (Samaria) becomes 
gradually more open and pleasant. Plains of good soil occur between 
the hills, at first small, but afterward comparatively large. The hills 
assume here a more varied aspect than in the southern districts; 
springs are more abundant and more permanent, until at last, when 
the district of Jebel Nablus is reached — the ancient Mount Ephraim — 
the traveller encounters an atmosphere and an amount of vegetation 
and water which is greatly superior to anything he has met with in 
Judaea, and even sufficient to recall much of the scenery of the West. 
Perhaps the springs are the only objects which *in themselves, and 
apart from their associations, really strike an English traveller with 
astonishment and admiration. Such glorious fountains as those of 
Ain-jalud or the Ras-el-Mukdtta, where a great body of the clearest 
water wells silently but swiftly out from deep blue recesses worn in 
the foot of a low cliff of limestone rock, and at once forms a consider- 
able stream, are very rarely to be met with out of irregular, rocky, 
mountainous countries ; and being such unusual sights, can hardly be 
looked on by the traveller without surprise and emotion. The valleys 
which lead down from the upper level in this district to the valley of 
the Jordan are less precipitous than in Judaea, the eastern district of 
the Jebel Nabltis contains some of the most fertile and valuable spots 
in the Holy Land. Hardly less rich is the extensive region which 



188 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



lies north of the city of Shechem (Nablus), between it and Carrnel, in 
which the mountains gradually break down into the plain of Sharon. 
But with all its richness, and all its advance on the southern part of 
the country, there is a strange dearth of natural wood about this central 
district. It is this which makes the wooded sides of Carmel and the 
park-like scenery of the adjacent plains so remarkable. 

No sooner, however, is the plain of Esdraelon passed, than a con- 
siderable improvement is perceptible, the low hills which spread 
down from the mountains of Galilee, and form the barrier between 
the plains of Akka and Esdraelon, are covered with timber, of mode- 
rate size, it is true, but of thick vigorous growth, and pleasant to the 
eye. Eastward of these hills, rises the round mass of Tabor, dark 
with its copses of oak, and set off by contrast with the bare slopes of 
Jebel-el-Duhy (the so-called " Little Hermon") and the white hills 
of Nazareth. North of Tabor and Nazareth is the plain of El-Buttauf, 
an upland tract hitherto very imperfectly described, but apparently 
of a nature similar to Esdraelon, though much more elevated. The 
notices of this romantic district in the Bible are but scanty ; in fact, 
till the date of the New Testament, when it had acquired the name of 
Galilee, it may be said for all purposes of history to be hardly men- 
tioned. And even in the New Testament times the interest is confined 
to a very small portion — the south and southwest corner, containing 
Nazareth, Cana and Nain, on the confines of Esdraelon and Caper- 
naum, Tiberias and Gennesareth, on the margin of the lake. 

Few things are a more constant source of surprise to the stranger 
in the Holy Land than the manner in which the hill-tops are, through- 
out, selected for habitation. A town in a valley is a rare exception. 
On the other hand, scarce a single eminence of the multitude 
always in sight but is crowned with its city or village, inhabited 
or in ruins, often so placed as if not accessibility but inaccessibility 
had been the object of its builders. And indeed such was their object. 
These groups of naked forlorn structures, piled irregularly one over 
the other on the curve of the hill-top, are the lineal descendants, if 
indeed they do not sometimes contain the actual remains of the " fenced 
cities, great and walled up to heaven," which are so frequently men- 
tioned in the records of the Israelite conquest. These hill towns were 
not what gave the Israelites their main difficulty in the occupation of 
the country. Wherever strength of arm and fleetness of foot availed, 
there those hardy warriors, fierce as lions, sudden and swift as eagles, 
sure-footed and fleet as the wild deer on the hills, easily conquered. 
It was in the plains, where the horses and chariots of the Canaanites 



GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND. 189 










, / 



THE SYRIAN GOAT. 

and Philistines had space to manoeuvre, that they failed in dislodging 
the aborigines. " Judah drove out the inhabitants of the mountain, 
but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had 
chariots of iron . . . neither could Manasseh drive out the inhabitants 
of Bethshean . . . nor Megiddo," in the plain of Esdraelon ..." nor 
could Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer," on the 
maritime plain near Ramleh . . . "nor could Asher drive out the 
inhabitants of Accho" . . . "and the Amorites forced the children of 
Dan into the mountain, for they would not suffer them to come down 
into the valley." Thus in this case the ordinary conditions of con- 
quest were reversed — the conquerors took the hills, the conquered 
kept the plains. To a people so exclusive as the Jews there must 
have been a constant satisfaction in the elevation and inaccessibility 
of their highland regions. This is evident in every page of their 
literature, which is tinged throughout with a highland coloring. The 
" mountains " were to " bring peace," the " little hills, justice to the 
people:" when plenty came, the corn was to nourish on the "top of 
the mountains." In like manner the mountains were to be joyful 
before Jehovah when he came to judge his people. What gave its 
keenest sting to the Babylonian conquest, was the consideration that 
the " mountains of Israel," the " ancient high places," were become a 
"prey and a derision ;" while, on the other hand, one of the most joy- 
ful circumstances of the restoration is, that the mountains "shall yield 
their fruit as before, and be settled after their old estates." We have the 



190 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

testimony of the heathens that in their estimation Jehovah was the 
" God of the mountains," and they showed their appreciation of the 
fact by fighting, when possible, in the lowlands. The contrast is 
strongly brought out in the repeated expression of the psalmists. 
" Some," like Canaanites and Philistines of the lowlands, "put their 
trust in chariots, and some in horses ; but Ave " — we mountaineers, 
from our " sanctuary " on the heights of " Zion " — li will remember 
the name of Jehovah our God," " the God of Jacob our Father," the 
shepherd -warrior, whose only weapons were sword and bow — the God 
who is now a high fortress for us — " at whose command both chariot 
and horse are fallen," " who burnetii the chariots in the fire." 

A few words must be said in general description of the maritime 
lowland, which intervenes between the sea and the highlands. This 
region, only slightly elevated above the level of the Mediterranean, 
extends without interruption from JEl-Arish, south of Gaza, to Mount 
Carmel. It naturally divides itself into two portions, each of about 
half its length : — the lower one the wider ; the upper one the narrower. 
The lower half is the plain of the Philistines — Philistia, or, as the 
Hebrews called it, the Shefelah, or lowland. The upper half is the 
Sharon or Saron of the Old and Xew Testaments. The Philistine 
Plain is on an average fifteen or sixteen miles in width from the 
coast to the first beginning of the belt of hills which forms the gradual 
approach to the high land of the mountains of Judah. The larger 
towns, as Gaza and Ashdod, which stand near the shore, are surround- 
ed with huge groves of olive, sycamore and palm, as in the days of King 
David. The whole plain appears to consist of brown loamy soil, light, 
but rich, and almost without a stone. It is now, as it was when the 
Philistines possessed it, one enormous cornfield ; an ocean of wheat 
covers the wide expanse between the hills and the sand dunes of the 
sea-shore, without interruption of any kind — no break or hedge, 
hardly even a single olive-tree. Its fertility is marvellous ; for the 
prodigious crops which it raises are produced, and probably have been 
produced almost year by year for the last forty centuries, without any 
of the appliances which we find necessary for success. The Plain 
of Shaeon is much narrower than Philistia. It is about ten miles 
wide from the sea to the foot of the mountains, which are here of a 
more abrupt character than those of Philistia, and without the inter- 
mediate hilly region there occuring. 

It is probable that the Israelites never permanently occupied more 
than a small portion of this rich and favored region. Its principal 
towns were, it is true, allotted to the different tribes ; but this was in 



GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND. 191 




THE WILD ASS. 



anticipation of the intended conquest. The five cities of the Philis- 
tines remained in their possession, and the district was regarded as 
one independent of and apart from Israel. In like manner, Dor 
remained in the hands of the Canaanites, and Gezer in the hands of 
the Philistines till taken from them in Solomon's time by his father- 
in-law. We find that toward the end of the monarchy, the tribe of 
Benjamin was in possession of Lydd, Jimzu, Ono, and other places in 
the plain ; but it was only by a gradual process of extension from 
their native hills, in the rough ground of which they were safe from 
the attack of cavalry and chariots. But, though the Jews never had 
any hold on the region, it had its own population, and towns probably 
not inferior to any in Syria. Both Gaza and Askelon had regular 
ports. Ashdod, though on the open plain, resisted for twenty-nine 
years the attack of the whole Egyptian force : a similar attack to that 
which reduced Jerusalem without a blow, and was sufficient on 
another occasion to destroy it after a siege of a year and a half, even 
when fortified by the works of a score of successive monarchs. 

The one ancient port of the Jews, the " beautiful " city of Joppa, 



192 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



occupied a position central between the Shefelah and Sharon. Roads 
led from these various cities to each other, to Jerusalem, Neapolis, 
and Sebaste in the interior, and to Ptolemais and Gaza, on the north 
and south. The commerce of Damascus, and, beyond Damascus, of 
Persia and India, passed this way to Egypt, Rome, and the infant 
colonies of the West ; and that traffic, and the constant movement of 
troops backward and forward, must have made this plain one of the 
busiest and most populous regions of Syria at the time of Christ. 

The characteristics already described are hardly peculiar to Pales- 
tine. Her hilly surface and general height, her rocky ground and 
thin soil, her torrent beds wide and dry for the greater part of the 
year, even her belt of maritine lowland — these she shares with other 
lands, though it would perhaps be difficult to find them united else- 
where. But there is 
one feature, as yet only 
alluded to, in which 
she stands alone. This 
feature is the Jordan 
— the one river of the 
country. The valley 
through which the 
Jordan rushes down 
its extraordinary de- 
scent begins with the 



river at its remotest 
springs of Hasbeiya, 
on the N. W. side of 
Hermon, and accom- 
jordan. panies it to the lower 

end of the Dead Sea, 
a length of about 150 miles. During the whole of this distance its 
course is straight, and its direction nearly due north and south. The 
springs of Hasbeiya are 1700 feet above the level of the Mediterra- 
nean, and the northern end of the Dead Sea is 1317 feet below it, so 
that between these two points the valley falls with more or less regu- 
larity through a height of more than 3000 feet. But though the 
river disappears at this point, the valley still continues its descent 
below the waters of the Dead Sea till it reaches a further depth of 
1308 feet. So that the bottom of this extraordinary crevasse is actu- 
ally more than 2600 feet below the surface of the ocean. In width, 
the valley varies. In its upper and shallower portion, as between 





13 



193 






194 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Banias and the Lake of Merom (Hideh), it is about five miles across. 
Between the Lake of Merom and the Sea of Galilee it contracts, and 
becomes more of an ordinary ravine or glen. It is in its third and 
lower portion that the valley assumes its more definite and regular 
character. During the greater part of this portion, it is about seven 
miles wide from the one wall to the other. The eastern mountains 
preserve their straight line of direction, and their massive horizontal 
wall-like aspect, during almost the whole distance. The western 
mountains are more irregular in height, their slopes less vertical. 
North of Jericho they recede in a kind of wide amphitheatre, and the 
valley becomes twelve miles broad, a breadth which it thenceforth 
retains to the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. Buried as it is 
between such lofty ranges, and shielded from every breeze, the climate 
of the Jordan Valley is extremely hot and relaxing. Its enervating 
influence is shown by the inhabitants of Jericho. All the irrigation 
necessary for the towns, or for the cultivation which formerly existed, 
is obtained from the torrents and springs of the western mountains. 
For all purposes to which a river is ordinarily applied, the Jordan is 
useless. So rapid that its course is one continued cataract; so 
crooked that, in the whole of its lower and main course, it has hardly 
half a mile straight; so broken with rapids and other impediments, 
that no boat can swim for more than the same distance continuously ; 
so deep below the surface of the adjacent country that it is invisible, 
and can only with difficulty be approached ; resolutely refusing all 
communication with the ocean, and ending in a lake, the peculiar 
conditions of which render navigation impossible — with all these 
characteristics, the Jordan, in any sense which we attach to the word 
"river," is no river at all; unless for irrigation and navigation, it is 
what its Arabic name signifies, nothing but a " great watering-place." 

The Dead Sea, which is the final receptacle of the Jordan, is 
about 46 miles in length, and 10J miles in its greatest width. The 
depression of its surface, and the depth which it attains below that 
surface, combined with the absence of any outlet, render it one of the 
most remarkable spots on the globe. The surface of the lake is 1316 
fjet below the level of the Mediterranean at Jaffa, and its greatest 
depth 1308 feet. 

Monotonous and uninviting as much of the Holy Land will appear 
to readers accustomed to the climate and verdure of our own favored 
country, we must remember that to the Israelites, after their long and 
weary wanderings in the frightful and burning desert, it was indeed 
a very paradise. 



CONQUEST OF THE HOLY LAND. 195 




CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CONQUEST AND DIVISION OP THE HOLY LAND. 

[b. c. 1451-H26.J 

OSES, the lawgiver, was succeeded by Joshua, the military 

chief, on whom devolved the work of leading the people into 

their inheritance, and giving them " rest." He was the son 

of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim. His name at first was 

Oshea (help or Saviour), which Moses changed, by prefixing 

the name of Jehovah to Joshua, that is, God is the Saviour ; and this 

name, so descriptive of his work, was a type of the higher work of 

Jesus, in " saving his people from their sins." He was 
b c 1451 . 

probably above eighty years of age, having been above 

forty at the beginning of the wandering in the wilderness. He had 
grown up to mature age in the state of Egyptian bondage ; he had 
shared the experience and trials of the wilderness, as the chosen 
servant of Moses ; he had proved his military capacity at Rephidim 
and in the conquest of the land east of Jordan ; and his steadfast 
obedience to Kadesh, when he stood alone with Caleb, " faithful 
among the faithless;" and he lived for about twenty-five years more 
to finish his allotted work. These three periods of his life thus 
embrace the whole history of the moulding of the nation from its state 
of hopeless bondage, when Moses fled to Midian, till God " brought 
them in and planted them in the mountain of his inheritance." His 
character was in accordance with his career : a devout warrior, blame- 
less and fearless, who has been taught by serving as a youth how to 
command as a man ; who earns by manly vigor a quiet, honored old 
age; who combines strength with gentleness, ever looking up for and 
obeying the Divine impulse with the simplicity of a child, while he 
wields great power, and directs it calmly, and without swerving, to 
the accomplishment of a high unselfish purpose. He is one of the 
very few worthies of the Old Testament on whose character there is 
no stain, though his history is recorded with unusual fulness. We 
have already noticed his appointment and consecration as the suc- 
cessor of Moses. 

As soon as the mourning for Moses was ended, God appeared to 



196 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



Joshua, and commanded him to lead the people over Jordan, with a 
renewed description of their land, an assurance of victory, an exhorta- 
tion to courage and to obedience maintained by meditation on the book 
of the law, and a promise of God's presence. Joshua prepared the 
host against the third day, and summoned the two tribes and a half to 
perform their promise of marching in the van. He had already sent 
two spies to Jericho, which was to be the first object of attack. This 
great city stood in a spacious plain, about six miles west of Jordan, 
and opposite to the camp of Israel, in the midst of a grove of noble 
palm-trees, whence it was called " Jericho, the city of palms." It had 
a " king," like all the great cities of Canaan. The description of its 
spoil proves the wealth it derived from its position on the high road 

of the commerce that 
passed from the East 
over the Jordan to Phil- 
istia and Egypt ; and the 
" goodly Babylonish gar- 
ment " in particular at- 
tests its use of the pro- 
ducts of the Chaldsean 
capital. It appeared to 
possess advantages for a 
capital far exceeding those 
of Jerusalem, to which it 
might have become a for- 
midable rival, but for the 
curse laid upon it by 
Joshua. It was strongly 
fortified and well guard- 
ed, the gates being shut at night. The houses on the walls indicate 
the solidity of the walls themselves. 

The two spies were received into one of these houses by a harlot 
named Rahab, in whose mind the terror that had fallen on the 
Canaanites, when they heard all that God had done for Israel, had 
produced belief in Jehovah, as the God of heaven and of earth, and in 
his purpose to give them the land. In this faith she hid the spies ; 
misdirected the officers of the king, who came in search of them, and 
sent them out of the city in fruitless pursuit ; and then let down the 
spies from a window of her house over the city wall, after they had 
sworn to save her family in the destruction of the city. A scarlet 
thread, in the window from which she had let them down, was the 




HOUSE ON THE WALL OF A CITY. 




197 



198 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

sign by which the house was to be known. The spies fled to the 
mountain for three days, to avoid the pursuers who had gone out in 
search of them, and then returned to Joshua, with the report that Je- 
hovah had delivered the land into their hands ; for all the inhabitants 
were fainting with fear because of them. 

The next morning Joshua broke up the camp at Shittim, and moved 
down to the edge of the Jordan, which at this season, the harvest 
{April), overflowed its banks, in consequence of the melting of the 
snow about its sources in the Antilibanus. On the third day, the 
officers instructed the people in the order of their march, and Joshua 
bade them sanctify themselves in preparation for the wonder that God 
should do on the morrow. In the morning, the priests that bore the 
ark advanced in front of the host to the water's edge ; and their feet 
were no sooner dipped in the water, than the river was divided, the 
waters that came down from above being heaped up as a wall, and 
the lower portion flowing down toward the Dead Sea, and leaving the 
channel bare. The priests advanced into the midst of the river's bed 
with the ark, and there stood firm till all the people had passed over. 
Meanwhile twelve chosen men, one from each tribe, took twelve stones 
from the spot where the priests stood firm, and brought them out of 
the river, leaving in their place twelve other stones from the dry land. 
"When all this was done, Joshua commanded the priests to come up 
out of Jordan ; and the moment that their feet were lifted over the 
margin of the water into the dry land, the waters of the river returned, 
and overflowed the banks as before. 

The host encamped that night at Gilgal, in the plains of Jericho, 
and there Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been brought out 
of the river's bed, for a perpetual memorial of the division of the 
waters before the ark of Jehovah, to let his people pass into their land, 
just as the Red Sea had been divided to let them pass out of Egypt. 
The passage of the Jordan was completed on the tenth 
day of the first month (Xisan= April, b. c. 1451). This 
was the day appointed for the selection of the Paschal Lamb, and on 
the evening of the fourteenth the people kept the Passover for the 
first time on the sacred soil of their inheritance, exactly forty years 
after their fathers had first kept it before leaving Egypt. But first, 
God commanded Joshua to circumcise the people ; for the circumcised 
generation who had left Egypt had died in the wilderness, and none 
of the present generation had been circumcised. It seems strange that 
this essential seal of the covenant should have been neglected under 
the leadership of Moses himself; but his attention may have been too 



CONQUEST OF THE HOLY LAND. 199 

closely occupied with the public affairs of the people to inquire into a 
matter which rested with the heads of families. Be this as it may 
the omission led to a great national observance, which mav be re- 
garded as a renewal of the covenant with Abraham in the very land 
the promise of which had been sealed with the same sign. Perhaps 
this is implied in the terms of the command to Joshua to " circumcise 
the people again." In memory of the "rolling away of their re- 
proach," the place was called Gilgal, i. e., rolling. 

Here, on the morrow after the Passover, the new generation tasted 
bread for the first time. They ate unleavened bread and parched 
corn of the old crop of the land ; and at the same time the manna 
ceased. From that day forward they began to eat the fruits of the 
year. 

We must not fail to notice the picture of their security and their 
command of the open country, implied in these proceedings. They 
were not only unmolested during their circumcision and the Passover, 
but they were supplied with old and new corn, whether by the agency 
or by the flight of the country people, while the cities were " closely 
shut up for fear of them," and the news of their passage of the Jordan 
had so terrified the kings of the Amorites and the Canaanites, from 
the Jordan to the sea, "that their heart melted, neither was there any 
spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel." 

As Joshua was meditating how to attack Jericho, a vision was 
vouchsafed to him, to teach him that the work was God's. Looking 
up toward the city, he saw a warrior opposite to him with a drawn 
sword in his hand, w T ho, in reply to Joshua's challenge, announced 
that he had come forth as the " Captain (or prince) of the host of 
Jehovah." This title, so often afterward applied to the Son of God, 
revealed him to Joshua, who fell down before him to worship, and to 
receive the commands of his supreme general. After bidding him to 
put off his shoe, for the place was holy, Jehovah promised him the 
conquest of Jericho, and prescribed the manner of its capture. The 
host were to compass the city for seven days : the first six days once, 
the chosen warriors marching in front of the ark, before which seven 
priests bore seven trumpets of rams' horns; the rest of the people fol- 
lowing, and all preserving silence, while the trumpets alone sounded 
a continued defiance. On the seventh day the circuit was repeated 
seven times; and at the seventh, the trumpets pealed forth one loug 
loud blast; the people raised a mighty shout; the wall of the city fell 
down flat ; and each man rushed in straight from the place where he 
had stood, as Joshua had commanded. Before its capture, the city, 



200 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 





PLAIN OF JERICHO. 



with all its inhabitants, was "accursed," or "devoted," as the first- 
fruits of the spoil of Canaan — a thing " most holy to Jehovah ;" and 
the law prescribed that all living beings so devoted should be put to 
death without redemption, and all the property destroyed, or dedicated 
to God. Only the household of Rahab were excepted from the curse ; 
and the two spies were sent to bring her and her kindred safe out 
beyond the camp. Then the men and women, young and old, and 
the oxen, sheep, and asses were put to the edge of the sword : the city 
was burnt with fire, and its buildings razed to the ground ; the silver 
and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, were placed in the sacred 
treasury ; and Joshua imprecated a solemn curse on the man who 
should rebuild Jericho. The curse was literally fulfilled in the fate 
of Hiel, the Bethelite, who rebuilt Jericho in the reign of Ahab (about 
B. c. 925) : his first-born son, Abiram, died as he was laying the 
foundation, and his youngest son, Segub, while he was setting up the 
gates. 

No less striking was the blessing which followed Rahab for her 
conduct, which is recorded as the greatest example of faith, and of the 
works which spring from faith, in the old heathen world. Besides 
being a heathen, she was a harlot, for there is no ground for the 
interpretation of the word as meaning an inn-keeper; though there is 
much to prove that she was not utterly depraved. But her mind and 
heart received in simple faith the proofs of Jehovah 's power and pur- 



CONQUEST OF THE HOLY LAND 201 

poses ; she served his people with courage, ingenuity, and devotion ; 
and so she " entered into the kingdom of God." She was rewarded 
by a most distinguished place among the families of Israel. She 
married Salmon (perhaps one of the spies), and became the mother of 
Boaz, the great-grandfather of David. Hers is thus one of the four 
female names, all of them foreigners, recorded in the genealogy of 
Christ ; and it is one of the profoundest moral, as well as spiritual, 
lessons of his gospel, that he did not disdain such an ancestry. 

The fall of Jericho itself is placed by the Apostle among the great 
triumphs of faith. It was an example of the power of simple obedi- 
ence to plans of action prescribed by God ; and an earnest of the con- 
quests to be achieved by the same principle. And this is true also of 
the destruction of the city. Not only as the first which the Israelites 
took, but as perhaps the most conspicuous city of Canaan for the ad- 
vantages of its position, its con|merce, wealth, and luxury, and unques- 
tionably also for the abominable vices that had now " filled up the 
iniquity of the Canaanites," its doom was the pattern of that denounced 
on the cities of the land. 

There was, however, one man among the Israelites, whose lust of 
spoil made him unfaithful. His act brought a curse upon all Israel, 
so that they failed in their next enterprise, the attack on Ai. This 
was the place east of Bethel, between which and Bethel Abraham had 
pitched his tent : it lay among the hills, probably at the head of one 
of the passes leading up from the valley of the Jordan. The spies 
whom Joshua had sent reported it an easy conquest ; and only about 
3000 men were detached to take it. They were repulsed and chased 
to Shebarim, with the loss of thirty-six men. The hearts of the peo- 
ple melted, and Joshua, with all the elders, fell down before the ark 
as mourners, and uttered earnest expostulations to Jehovah. The 
oracle replied that Israel had sinned in taking of the accursed thing 
and concealing it among their goods. Joshua was commanded to 
sanctify the people against the morrow, and then to cast lots for the 
offender, who was to be slain and burned, with all belonging to him. 
This decision by lot involved no chance, but in the whole history of 
the Jews it was one of the most regular methods of revealing the will 
of God, especially in reference to some individual. " The lot is cast 
into the lap, but the whole disposal thereof is Jehovah's." Accord- 
ingly, the lot fell first on the tribe of Judah, then on the family of 
Zerah, then on the house of Zabdi, whose members were brought indi- 
vidually before Jehovah, and Achan the son of Car mi was taken. 
Exhorted by Joshua to give glory to God, Achan confessed that he 



202 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

had taken from the spoil of Jericho a goodly Babylonish garment, and 
200 shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels' weight, 
and had hid them in the earth in his tent, where they were found by 
men sent by Joshua. The offender was stoned, and afterward burned, 
with his children, his cattle, and his tent, and a great heap of stones 
was raised over them to mark the place, which received the name of 
Achor (trouble). His case is a striking example of the effect of sin, as 
involving the destruction of the guiltless: "That man perished not 
alone in his iniquity." 

Encouraged anew by God, Joshua formed a plan for taking Ai by 
stratagem, which met with complete success. The city was destroyed, 
with all its inhabitants, the cattle only being reserved as the spoil of 
Jehovah. The King of Ai was hanged on a tree, and buried under 
a great heap of stones, the only memorial of the city. It seems to be 
implied that Bethel was taken at the same time. 

The victory at Ai secured the passes from the valley of the Jordan, 
and gave the Israelites access to the open country in the centre of 
Palestine. Joshua now marched to Shechem, where he held the sol- 
emn ceremony of the Blessing and the Curse on Mounts Gerizim and 
Ebal, as prescribed by Moses. On his return, a force was doubtless 
left at Ai to secure the passes, but the main body of the army re- 
mained encamped at Gilgal, in the valley of the Jordan. 

The above events form the first stage in the conquest of Canaan. 

A great league was now formed by all the kings west of Jordan, in 
the hills, the valleys, and the sea-coasts, as far north as Lebanon, 
against the Israelites. The people of Gibeon alone sought for peace 
by a curious stratagem. Gibeon (now El-Jib), " a royal city, greater 
than Ai," was the chief of the four cities of the Hivites, lying imme- 
diately opposite the pass of Ai, and at the head of the pass of Beth- 
horon. It would therefore have been the next object of the attack of 
the Israelites. Assuming the appearance of wayworn travellers, with 
old shoes and sacks, rent and patched wine-skins, and dry and mouldy 
bread, an embassy of the Gibeonites went to Joshua, and declared that 
they had come from a very far country, where they had heard the 
name of Jehovah and the fame of his mighty deeds, to seek for a league 
with his people. Their bread had been hot, they said, and their gar- 
ments and wine and skins new when they started. 

The trick imposed upon Joshua and the princes of the congregation, 
who omitted to consult the orach 4 . They made peace with the Gib- 
eonites, and swore to them by Jehovah to save their lives. Three 
days afterward they learned the truth, and reached their cities by a 




CONQUEST OF THE HOLY LAND. 203 

three days' march. The oath was held sacred, in spite of the mur- 
murs of the congregation ; but, to punish their deceit, Joshua put the 
Gibeonites under a curse, by which they became devoted to Jehovah 
in irredeemable bondage, and they were employed as " hewers of wood 
and drawers of water for the house of God " forever. The treaty evi- 
dently included all the four cities, of which Gibeon was the chief. 
The transaction affords a memorable example of a principle more than 
once insisted on in the law, and expressed by the Psalmist in his 
blessing on the man " who sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth 
not." (Psalms xv. 4.) 

Alarmed by the defection of Gibeon, Adoni-zedek, king; 
B. c. 1451. 

of Jerusalem, made a league with the kings of Hebron, 

Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, and laid siege to the city. The Gib- 
eonites sent for help to Joshua, who marched by night from the camp 
at Gilgal, took the confederated Amorites by surprise, and utterly 
routed them near Beth-horon. " The battle of Beth-horon or Gibeon," 
remarks Dean Stanley, " is one of the most important in the history 
of the world ; and yet the very name of this great battle is far less 
known to most of us than that of Marathon or Cannse." Beth-horon 
(the house of Caverns) was the name of two villages, an " upper " and 
a " nether," or lower, on the steep road from Gibeon to Azekah and 
the Philistine plain, which is still the great road of communication 
from the interior of the country to the sea-coast. 

From Gibeon to the Upper Beth-horon is a distance of about four 
miles of broken ascent and descent. The ascent, however, predomi- 
nates, and this therefore appears to be the " going up " to Beth-horon, 
which formed the first stage of Joshua's pursuit. With the upper 
village the descent commences; the road is rough and difficult, even 
for the mountain- paths of Palestine, now over sheets of smooth rock 
flat as the flag-stones of a London pavement, now over the upturned 
edges of the limestone strata, and now among the loose rectangular 
stones so^ characteristic of the whole of this district. After about three 
miles of this descent, a slight rise leads to the lower village standing 
on the last outpost of the Benjamite hills. 

This rough descent from the Upper to the Lower Beth-horon is the 
"going down to Beth-horon," which formed the second stage of 
Joshua's pursuit. As they fled down this steep pass, the Canaanites 
were overtaken by a miraculous hail-storm, which slew more than had 
fallen in the battle. It was then that Joshua, after a prayer to 
Jehovah, who had promised him this great victory, "said in the sight 
of Israel — 






r 

QD 




204 



CONQUEST OF THE HOLY LAND. 205 

" ' Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; 

And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.' 

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had 
avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the Book 
of Jasher ? '? The miraculous suspense of the " greater and the lesser 
light" in their full course enabled Joshua to continue his pursuit to 
Makkedah, a place in the Shefelah, or maritime plain, where the five 
kings hid themselves in a cave. Joshua stayed not even then, but 
bidding the people roll great stones to the mouth of the cave, and set 
a guard over it, he pressed the rear of the fugitives, and made an 
end of slaying them with a very great slaughter till they were con- 
sumed, that the rest which remained of them entered into fenced 
cities. "And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at 
Makkedah in peace; none moved his tongue against any of the chil- 
dren of Israel." 

The five kings were now brought forth from the cave, and Joshua 
bade all the captains place their feet upon their necks, in token of 
what Jehovah would do to all their enemies. Then he slew them, 
and hanged them on five trees till the evening. Their bodies were 
cast into the cave, and its mouth was closed with great stones, just 
as that most memorable sun at length went down, and closed the day, 
"like which there was none before it or after it, that Jehovah 
hearkened unto the voice of a man; for Jehovah fought for Israel." 

This great battle was followed by the conquest of the seven kings 
of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir, 
whose cities, chief and dependent, were utterly destroyed, with all 
their inhabitants, and all creatures that breathed, as Jehovah had 
commanded. In this one campaign Joshua subdued the southern 
half of Palestine, both highlands and lowlands, from Kadesh-barnea 
to Gaza, the eastern and western limits of the southern frontier ; and 
he led back the people to the camp at Gilgal. 

Our attention is now called to the north, the country 
about the " Sea of Chinneroth " (the Lake of Galilee), the 
Upper Jordan, and the bases of Mount Lebanon. Jabin, king of 
Hazor, the chief city of Northern Palestine, formed a league against 
Israel with all the kings of the north as far as Mount Hermon, and 
with all the nations that were still unsubdued. Their army was M as 
the sand on the sea-shore for multitude," and they had many chariots 
and horses. Joshua routed them by the waters of Merom, and chased 
them as far as "Great Zidon" and the valley of Mizpeh (probably 
the great valley of Ccele-Syria). In obedience to God's prohibition 



206 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of cavalry, Joshua cut the hoof-sinews of the horses and burnt the 
chariots, which he might have been tempted to keep as the choicest 
prizes of victory. Joshua next " turned back," perhaps on some new 
provocation, and took Hazor, putting its king and all the inhabitants 
to the sword, and likewise with the other cities of the confederates ; 
but the cities themselves were left standing except Hazor, which he 
burnt, as being " the head of all those kingdoms." As the result of 
this third campaign, Israel was master of the whole land from Mount 
Halak (the smooth mountain), at the ascent to Mount Seir, on the 
south, to Baal-gad, under Mount Hermon, on the north. But a 
much longer time was required for the subjugation of the numerous 
kings, who held each his own fortified city, and " Joshua made war a 
long time with all those kings." It was five years at least, and 
probably six, before the land rested from war (b. c. 1445). Even 
then the old inhabitants held out in many separate parts, for the 
further trial of Israel's faith and courage, as Moses had foretold. 

The results of the whole conquest, besides the previous victories 
over Sihon and Og, are summed up in the subjugation of thirty-one 
kings of cities on the west of the Jordan, belonging to the seven nations, 
which had been mentioned in the first promise to Abraham, the Amor- 
ites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Hittites, Hivites, Jebusites, and Periz- 
zites. Special notice is taken of the extermination of the giant Ana- 
kim, who had struck such terror into the spies, and who were only 
left in the Philistine cities of Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, though they 
had before occupied the whole of the central highlands, with Hebron 
and other cities. 

The defeat of these thirty-one kings did not involve, in every case, 
the capture of their cities. Jerusalem, for example, was not taken till 
after the death of Joshua, and its citadel remained in the hands of the 
Jebusites till the time of David. Many other cities held out for a 
long time. 

But, besides such isolated posts, there w r ere whole tracts of country 
— " very much land " — yet to be subdued, within the limits which 
God had originally named, and which he now once more promised. 
These were, speaking generally, the plains along the Mediterranean, 
the coast of Phoenicia, and the ranges of Lebanon. On the southwest, 
there was the whole country and five cities of the Philistines, who 
were destined to be such formidable enemies to Israel, from Sihor, on 
the frontier of Egypt, to Ekron. Next were the Canaanites of the 
west coast, as far as Aphek, which seems to have been near Sidon, the 
Sidonians, " and all Lebanon," which is however so described as to 




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208 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

include only the southern slopes, or foot-hills. These conquests 
were not reserved for Joshua, who was now " old and stricken in 
years ;" but he was commanded to include them in the division of 
the land among the tribes. 

Joshua was now commanded to divide the land by lot 
among the nine tribes and a half; the two and a half hav- 
ing already received their allotment from Moses on the east of Jordan ; 
and the Levites receiving no inheritance among their brethren, " for 
Jehovah, God of Israel, was their inheritance." Their withdrawal 
from the number of the tribes was compensated by the division of 
Joseph into the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. In describing 
the allotment generally, we follow the order of the Book of Joshua, 
in which, says Dean Stanley, " we have what may without offence be 
termed the Domesday Book of the conquest of Canaan." 

First, the territories of the two and a half tribes on the east of 
Jordan : 

I. Reuben lay first on the south from the Arnon, over the king- 
dom of Sihon, the northern boundary being a little above the latitude 
of Jericho. 

II. Gad came next to the north, possessing Mount Gilead and half 
of Ammon. On the side of Jordan, their northern border just touched 
the Sea of Chinneroth, and was drawn thence toward the southeast. 
The Jabbok divided their territory into two nearly equal parts. 

III. — 1. The half-tribe of Manasseh had all the kingdom of Og, 
king of Bashan, including half of Mount Gilead, which was the special 
inheritance of Machir, the son of Manasseh, and reaching to the base 
of Mount Hermon on the north. In all three cases, the eastern fron- 
tier toward the desert and the Hauran was necessarily indefinite. 
These allotments are expressly mentioned as having been made by 
Moses. 

The division of the land among the nine and a half tribes west of 
Jordan was made by Eleazar the high-priest and Joshua, with " the 
heads of the fathers of the tribes," by a solemn lot cast before Jehovah. 
It took place on two different occasions. First, while the people were 
still encamped at Gilgal, and perhaps before the conquest of the north 
was finished, the tribes of Judah and Joseph received, as their respec- 
tive allotments, the greater part of the south and the centre of the 
land. 

IV. Judah seems to have had the first share in consequence of 
Caleb's laying claim to Hebron, the special inheritance promised by 
Moses as a reward of his fidelity. His claim was admitted, and Joshua 




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210 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

added his blessing. Caleb, who at the age of eighty-five was still as 
strong for war as when he was forty, drove out the Anakim from 
Hebron, and then attacked Debir, which was taken by his nephew 
Othniel, whose valor was rewarded with the hand of Caleb's daughter, 
Achsah. Her demand of a special inheritance from her father, who 
gave her the upper and the nether springs, is an interesting picture of 
patriarchal life. The general inheritance of Judah began at the wild- 
erness of Zin, on the border of Edorn, while their southern border 
stretched across the wilderness to " the river of Egypt." The Dead 
Sea formed their east coast, and the northern border was drawn from 
the mouth of Jordan westward, past the south side of the hill of Jeru- 
salem (which lay therefore outside the boundary) to Kirjath-jearim, 
in Mount Ephraim, whence the western border skirted the land of the 
Philistines, and touched the Mediterranean. 

V. The tribe of Joseph had the centre of the land across from 
Jordan to the Mediterranean. Ephraim lay north of Judah ; but 
between them were the districts afterward allotted to Benjamin and 
Dan. The southern border was drawn from the Jordan along the 
north side of the plain of Jericho to Bethel, whence it took a bend 
southward to Beth-horon, and thence up again to the sea near Joppa. 
The northern border passed west from the Jordan opposite the mouth 
of the Jabbok past Michmethah to the mouth of the river Kanah (the 
" reedy," probably the Nahr Falaik or Wady-al-Khassab, which has 
the same signification). Besides the sacred valley of Shechem, it 
included some of the finest parts of Palestine, the mountains of Ephraim, 
and the great and fertile maritime plain of Sharon, proverbial for its 
roses. 

III. — 2. Manasseh, in addition to the land of Bashanand Gilead, 
east of the Jordan, which had been allotted to Machir and his son 
Gilead, had a lot on the west of Jordan, north of Ephraim. The 
extent of the territories of this tribe is accounted for, first, by the re- 
ward due to the valor of Machir, and next by the right established by 
the daughters of Zelophead to a share of the inheritance. The 
northern frontier is very difficult to determine, some very important 
towns of Manasseh being expressly named as within the lots of Asher 
and Issachar. Further we find the children of Joseph complaining 
to Joshua that they had only one lot, namely, Mount Ephraim, instead 
of the two given them by Jacob, and that they could not drive out the 
Canaanites from Beth-shean and the valley of Jezreel, because of their 
chariots of iron, and Joshua assigns to them " the wooded mountain," 
which can hardly be any other than Carmel. 



DIVISION OF THE HOLY LAND. 211 

During the long time that the encampment at Gilgal remained the 
head-quarters of the Israelites, they seem to have preserved the military 
system organized in the desert, with the tabernacle in the centre of 
the camp. But at length they removed to Shiloh, south of Shechem, 
in the territory of Ephraim, and there they set up the tabernacle, 
where it remained till the time of Samuel. There were still seven 
tribes that had not received their inheritance ; and Joshua reproved 
them for their slackness in taking possession of the land. We are not 
told on what principles the portions already allotted had been divided, 
except that on the east of Jordan the boundaries were assigned to 
Moses. Now, however, three men were appointed from each tribe to 
make a survey of the rest of the land, and to divide it into seven por- 
tions, which, with their several cities, they described in a book. The 
survey being finished, Joshua cast lots for the seven portions before 
the tabernacle in Shiloh. The result was as follows, the tribes being 
named in the order in which their lots came out : 

VI. Benjamin had the eastern part of the territory that lay be- 
tween Judah and Ephraim, embracing the plain of Jericho and the 
northern highlands of the later Judaea, a region admirably suited to 
the wild and martial character of the tribe. 

VII. Simeon had an inheritance taken out of the portion already 
allotted to Judah, for whom it was found to be too large, namely, the 
southwestern part of the maritime plain, with the land bordering on 
the desert, as far eastward as Beer-sheba. The?r western coast lay 
along the Mediterranean to the north of Askelon. 

VIII. Zebulun received the mountain range which forms the 
northern border of the great plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, between 
the eastern slopes of Carmel on the west, and the southwest shore of 
the Sea of Chinneroth and the course of the Jordan, to about opposite 
the mouth of the Hieromax on the east. The rich mountain passes 
which led down to the valley of Jezreel seem to be referred to in the 
blessing of Moses, "Rejoice, O Zebulun, in thy goings out." 

IX. Issachar's inheritance corresponded almost exactly to the 
great valley of Jezreel, otherwise called the plain of Esdraelon, which 
opened to the Jordan on the east, and was enclosed on the south by 
the hills of Gilboa, and on the north by the highlands of Issachar, 
among which Mount Tabor was conspicuous on the frontier. The 
territory seems to have been taken out of that of Manasseh, as Simeon's 
was out of Judah. The effect of its richness and seclusion on the 
character and history of the tribe has been noticed in connection with 
Jacob's blessing. 



212 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

• 

X. Asher had the rich maritime plain extending from Mount 
Carmel to "great Sidon" and "the strong city Tyre:" the territory 
of the former was included in their inheritance, though they failed to 
possess it. In their case too, both Jacob and Moses had given a 
prophetic intimation of the influence of the tribe's position. 

XI. Naphtali, the most powerful of the northern tribes, obtained 
the highlands which form the southern prolongation of the range of 
Lebanon, bounded on the east by the Upper Jordan, the " waters of 
Merom," and the Sea of Chinneroth ; and looking down on the w r cst 
upon the maritime plain of Asher, just as Zebulun looked down from 
the southern part of the same highlands into the valley of Esdraelon. 

XII. Dan had at first a very small territory northwest of Judah, 
from Japho ( Joppa) to the border of Simeon, almost entirely occupied 
by the Philistines. For this reason, and because they found their lot 
too small for them, they made an expedition against Leshem, or Laish, 
in the extreme north of the land, at the sources of the Jordan. They 
took the city and destroyed the inhabitants, and gave it the name of 
Dan. It became one of the two landmarks in the phrase which was 
used to describe the whole extent of the land from north to south, 
" from Dan even to Beersheba." In the Book of Judges, we have a 
fuller account of the expedition at the time when it took place (about 
B. c. 1406). 

Lastly, Joshua himself received, as his personal inheritance, the 
place he asked for, namely, Timnath-serah, in Mount Ephraim, and 
he built the city of that name. 

It must be remembered that the allotments were made not only to 
the tribes as a whole, but to the families of each tribe, as is expressly 
stated in each case : " This is the inheritance of the tribes by their 
families" Thus we shall expect to find the possessions of each tribe 
proportional to the number of its families, as determined by the 
census taken in the plains of Moab. This is generally the case ; but 
there still remain inequalities which can only be accounted for by 
the relative importance assigned to the tribes, on principles already 
indicated in the dying prophecy of Jacob. - The great preponderance 
of Judah and Joseph relates to their respective pre-eminence as the 
prince and heir of the whole family. 

Each of the twelve tribes having received the lot of its inheritance, 
provision was next made for the habitation of the Levites and the 
cities of refuge. Six cities of refuge were appointed by the people 
themselves : three on the west of Jordan, namely, Kedesh, in Galilee, 
in the highlands of Naphtali ; Shechem, in Mount Ephraim, and 



DIVISION OF THE HOLY LAND 



213 



Hebron, in the mountains of Judah ; and three on the east of Jordan, 
namely, for Reuben, Bezer, in the wilderness; for Gad, Ramoth, in 
Gilead ; for the half-tribe of Manasseh, Golan, in Bashan. 

The Levites having claimed the right given to them by Moses, 
received forty-eight cities and their suburbs, which were given up by 
the several tribes in proportion to the cities they possessed. Their 
allotment among the three families of the Levites has already been 
described. 

Thus did Jehovah give Israel the land which he had sworn to 

their father, and they dwelt in it. They had obtained their promised 

rest in this world, though a better rest remained, and still remains. 

Their enemies were delivered into their hand ; and all open resistance 

ceased. " There failed not aught of any good thing which Jehovah 

had spoken to the 

house of Israel : all 

cam e to pass ." T h e fai 1- 

ures afterward brought 

to light were in the 

people themselves. 

Their 
b. c. 1444. 

peace was, 

however, soon threat- 
ened by the danger 
of a religious schism. 
The two tribes and a 
half, having kept their 
promise to their breth- 
ren, were dismissed by 
Joshua with a blessing, 

and with an earnest exhortation to cleave to Jehovah their God, and 
keep his commandments. Abundantly enriched with their share of 
the spoil of Canaan, they crossed the Jordan into the land of Gilead. 
Close to the ford, " the passage of the children of Israel/' they built 
a great altar (doubtless a huge erection of earth and stones), of the 
same form as the altar of burnt-offering. Hastily inferring their in- 
tention to establish a separate place of sacrifice, in violation of God's 
command, the other tribes prepared for war. But first they sent 
Phinehas, the son of the high-priest Eleazer, with ten princes of the 
respective tribes, to remonstrate with their brethren, and to remind 
them of the consequences of former public sins. The two tribes and 
a half replied that they had not acted in the spirit of rebellion against 




' V V£"A 



CITY OF REFUGE. 



214 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Jehovah. They had feared lest a time should come when their more 
favored brethren might forget their common interest in Jehovah, the 
God of Israel ; and, therefore, they had erected the altar, not to burn 
sacrifices upon it, but as a perpetual memorial of their part in the 
altar of which it was the likeness. Thus interpreted, their act was 
accepted by the envoys, and afterward by all the people, as a new 
proof that Jehovah was among Israel ; and the children of Reuben 
and Gad called the altar Ed (a witness) : " for," said they, " it shall 
be a witness between us that Jehovah is God." We hear nothing 
further of this erection : its meaning may have been forgotten in later 
times. 

The closing records of the history of Joshua show us a solemn 
pause and crisis in the career of Israel. They had now attained that 
first success which is always a trial of human power and endurance, 
and which, in their case, was the test of their faithfulness to Jehovah. 
In Joshua they had a leader equal to the crisis. He lived long after 
God had given them rest from their enemies; and he was now 
" going the way of all the earth." His last care was to set clearly 
before the people their true position, and to bind them to Jehovah by 
another solemn covenant. The last two chapters of Joshua seem to 
refer to two distinct transactions. 

First, he sent for all the heads of the tribes, the judges and the 
officers, and gave them an exhortation, which may be summed up in 
the words, " Be ye, therefore, very courageous to keep and to do all 
that is written in the book of the law of Moses." He knew the 
danger of their resting satisfied with what was done, or of their 
thinking it hopeless to do more ; and he knew that, if once they 
ceased before the heathen remnant was destroyed out of the land, 
they would be corrupted by their idolatries and vices. He well re- 
membered all the experience of the desert, and all the warnings of 
Moses. He reminds them of all that God had done to the Canaanites 
for their sakes ; and promises that the land divided to them should 
be wholly theirs, and the heathen be driven out before them. On 
their part they had thus far been faithful ; let them still thus cleave 
to Jehovah their God. Let them not mix with the people that re- 
mained ; nor name their gods, nor swear by them, nor worship them. 
If once they began this course, and if they intermarried with them, 
God would cease to drive out those nations, which would become to 
them as snares and scourges and thorns, till they themselves should 
perish from the land. In the prospect of his own death, he testifies 
that not one good thing had failed of all that God had spoken ; and 



DIVISION OF THE HOLY LAND. 215 

that God would be as faithful to his word, in bringing upon them all 
the evils that he had spoken. The distinctly-prophetic character 
of this last warning deserves special notice ; for he does not say t/*, 
but " when ye have transgressed the covenant of Jehovah your God, 
and served other gods, ye shall perish from off the good land which 
he hath given you." 

This exhortation was followed up by a great public transaction 
between Joshua and all Israel. He gathered them together at 
Shechem, the sacred home of Abraham and Jacob. From out the 
mass he called forth the elders, the heads of families, the judges and 
the officers, who " presented themselves before God ;" that is, not 
before the tabernacle, which was then at Shiloh, but at the place 
which Abraham and Jacob had sanctified by their altars to God. 
Joshua addressed them in the same strain as before; but, going back 
to the call of Abraham, he reminded them of the time when their 
fathers " on the other side of the flood " of Euphrates had served 
other gods. Briefly mentioning the history of Abraham, Isaac, Esau, 
and Jacob, till the descent into Egypt, he recounts the mission of 
Moses and Aaron, the passage of the Red Sea, and the sojourn in the 
wilderness, the conquest of the Amorite kings, and the turning of 
Balaam's intended curse into a blessing; the passage of the Jordan, 
the capture of Jericho, and the deliverance of the nations of Canaan 
into their hands, " but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow ;" and 
he reminds them that all they possessed was the gift of God, and the 
fruit of others' labors : " I have given you a land for which ye did 
not labor, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them ; of the 
vineyards and olive-yards which ye planted not, do ye eat." From 
all this he deduces the exhortation to fear Jehovah, and serve him in 
sincerity and in truth, and to put away the gods which their fathers 
had served beyond the flood, and in Egypt. This is not a demand to 
purge themselves from actual idolatry, into which they had not yet 
fallen, but to renounce forever the examples which might seduce them 
to it. He ends with an appeal, unequalled in simple force except 
by that of Elijah to Israel ; if they found fault with the service of 
Jehovah, let them at once choose whom they would serve, whether 
the idols of their fathers, or the gods of the Amorites ; but his own 
choice was made, "As for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah. " 

The appeal was irresistible : the people swore by God, not to for- 
sake him who had done all these wonders for them. Thus did 
Joshua make a covenant with the people, and set them a statute and 
an ordinance in Shechem. It was, for that generation and their 



DIVISION OF THE HOLY LAND. 217 

posterity, the counterpart of the covenant which Moses had made, on 
the part of God, with their fathers in Mount Horeb. Joshua added 
the record of this great transaction to the book of the law of God, and 
set up a monument of it in the form of a great stone under an oak by 
the sanctuary of Jehovah; perhaps the very oak beneath whose 
shadow Abraham and Jacob had pitched their tents. 

The people were dismissed to their homes, and Joshua 
I42ff'" " . . soon after died at the age of 110 (about B. c. 1426-5), 
and was buried in the border of his own inheritance at 
Timnath-serah. His decease was soon followed by that of Eleazar, 
the high-priest, the son of Aaron : he was also buried in Mount 
Ephraim, in a hill belonging (as a burying-placc) to his son and 
successor, Phinehas. The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had 
brought up out of Egypt, were duly interred at Shechem, in the plot 
of ground which Jacob had bought of Hamor. This bright period 
of Jewish history is crowned by the record that "Israel served 
Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that 
overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of Jehovah 
that he had done for Israel." The lessons of the wilderness had not 
been lost upon them. Not in vain had they seen their fathers drop 
and die till they were all consumed for their rebellion. We search 
the sacred history in vain, from the Exodus to the Captivity, for 
another generation that was so wholly faithful to Jehovah. 



218 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XIV. 

THE EARLIER JUDGES, TO DEBORAH AND BARAK. 
[b. c. 1426-1256.] 

HE period of Jewish history from the death of Joshua to the 
choice of Saul as king was one of great disorganization, and 
the records of it involve considerable difficulties. Our sole 
authority, besides a few incidental allusions, is the Book of 
Judges, to which Ruth forms a supplement, having been origi- 
nally a part of it. Some passages in the book bear internal evidence 
of a contemporary authorship, but it was not composed as a whole 

till the time of the kings. The more serious difficulties 
b. c 1426 

of chronology we reserve for subsequent discussion, giving 

meanwhile the received chronology of the English Bible. 

The history of the whole period is summed up in a passage which 
connects the Book of Judges with that of Joshua. After the death 
of Joshua, the people remained faithful to Jehovah so long as the 
generation lasted which had seen all his mighty works. "And there 
arose another generation after them which knew not Jehovah, nor 
yet the works which he had done for Israel." They fell into the 
worship of "Baalim," the idols of the country, and especially of Baal 
and Ashtaroth, and they were given over into the hands of the ene- 
mies whose gods they served. Their career of conquest was checked, 
and heathen conquerors oppressed them ; but, though punished, they 
were not forsaken by God. As often as they were oppressed, he 
raised up "Judges," who delivered them from their oppressors. But, 
as often as they were delivered, they disobeyed their judges, and de- 
clined into idolatry; and, " when the judge was dead they returned, 
and corrupted themselves more than their fathers." For this unfaith- 
fulness on their part to the covenant, God kept back the full accom- 
plishment of his promise to drive out the nations before them, who 
were left at Joshua's death ; indeed, it was in foresight of their sin 
that he had not entirely delivered those nations into the hand of 
Joshua. 

Such is the summary which is filled up in the first sixteen chapters 
of Judges : the rest of the book (ch. xvii.-xxi.) is occupied with two 



THE EARLIER JUDGES. 219 

or three striking examples of the idolatry and anarchy thus generally 
described. 

The history of the Judges is prefaced by some account of the efforts 
of the several tribes to drive out the heathen nations after the death 
of Joshua. In these efforts Judah took the lead, by the direction of 
God's oracle, and in association with Simeon. These two tribes 
gained a great victory over the Canaanites and Perizzites in Bezek, 
and took prisoner Adoni-bezek (the Lord of Bezek), one of those 
tyrants who have become famous for some special cruelty to their cap- 
tives. He had cut off the thumbs and great toes of seventy kings, 
and amused himself with their attempts to pick up the food that fell 
from his table; and now, himself thus mutilated, he confessed that 
God had requited him justly. He died at Jerusalem, the lower city 
of which the men of Judah succeeded in taking. This example of 
the wanton cruelty of the chiefs of Canaan throws a light on the state 
of the country before its conquest. 

Next we have the account of the exploits of Caleb and Othniel, 
already anticipated in Joshua ; and of the settlement of the Kenites, 
the children of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, in the wilderness 
of Judah, to the south of Arad. Here they dwelt as a free Arab 
tribe, among the people of the desert, but in close alliance with Israel. 
Judah then aided Simeon in recovering his lot. They took Zephath 
(which they called Hormah), and fulfilled by its utter destruction the 
vow long since made by Israel. They also took Gaza, Askelon and 
Ekron, from the Philistines; but the strength of those people in war- 
chariots prevented their expulsion, and enabled them soon to regain 
these cities. The tribe of Benjamin failed to drive out the Jebusites 
from Jebus, the citadel of Jerusalem, which belonged to their lot. 
The men of Epiiraim took Bethel by the treachery of an inhabitant, 
whom they caught outside the gate of the city. It w r as now finally 
called by the name of Bethel, which was first given to it by Jacob, 
and had been commonly applied to it by the Jews. Its old name of 
Imz was given to a city which its betrayer went and built among the 
Hittites. Ephraim failed, however, to drive out the Canaanites from 
Gezer; and Manasseh only reduced those of the valley of Esdraclon 
to tribute after some time. Several cities of the northern highlands 
proved too strong for Zebulun and Napiitali, but some of them 
were made tributaries, as Beth-shemesh and Bcth-anath. Asiier 
did not even attempt to take Accho, Zidon, and the other cities of the 
Phoenician sea-board and the Lebanon, but they dwelt among the 
people of the land. Lastly, the men of Dan were forced back by the 



220 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Amorites from the valleys of their lot into the mountains ; and even 
there the Amorites retained some strongholds, which were ultimately 
reduced to tribute by the power of Ephraim. This was no doubt the 
chief motive of the northern expedition of the Danites, which has 
been already mentioned, and to which we shall have to recur. The 
Amorites also kept possession of the " Pass of Scorpions " (Akrabbim), 
from "Selah" (the cliff, Petra?) upward, south of the Dead Sea. 

These fitful efforts were reproved by a prophet, who 
*' went forth from Gilgal to some solemn assembly of the 
people in its neighborhood ; and told them that, as they had failed to 
keep God's covenant, He would not drive out the people before them. 
They kept a great act of public humiliation, with sacrifices to Jehovah ; 
and from their cries of repentance the place received the name of 
Bochim (the weepers). 

After this introduction we have the general summary of the vicissi- 
tudes of idolatry and repentance, servitude and deliverance, which we 
have already noticed. It ends with the enumeration of the heathen 
nations who w r ere still left, " to prove Israel by them :" a trial in which 
they failed, intermarrying with them, worshipping their gods, doing 
evil in the sight of Jehovah, forgetting their own God, and serving 
" Baalim and the groves." These statements are illustrated by the 
dark records of idolatry, vice, and cruelty, which occupy the closing 
chapters of the book, and which may be most fitly noticed here, espe- 
cially as they seem to belong to the earlier part of the period of the 
Judges. They are expressly mentioned as examples of the disorder 
of those days when " there was no king in Israel, but every man did 
that which was right in his own eyes." 

I. The Story of Micah and the Danites. A man of Mount Ephraim, 
named Micah, had stolen from his mother 1100 shekels of silver. 
She cursed the unknown thief, and devoted the silver to Jehovah, to 
make a graven and a molten image ; a sign of that first step in idolatry, 
when forbidden symbols were intruded into the w r orship of the true 
God. Micah confessed the theft, and restored the silver to his mother, 
who dedicated 200 shekels of it to the fulfilment of her vow. The 
two images were set up in the house of Micah, who made also an 
ephod (the garment of a priest) and teraphim (minor household gods), 
and consecrated one of his sons as priest ; thus making a complete 
patriarchal establishment for the worship of Jehovah, but with the 
addition of idolatrous symbols. He soon obtained for his priest a 
young Levite who had removed from Bethlehem-judah, and who was 
no less a person than the grandson of Moses (see p. 221). Micah hired 



THE EARLIER JUDGES. 221 

him for ten shekels a year, besides garments and food ; and though 
the law forbade a Levite to intrude into the priests' office, Micah felt 
sure that Jehovah would bless him, now he had a Levite for his 
priest. 

About this time the Danites sent out five spies, to prepare for their 
great expedition against Laish. In passing the house of Micah, the 
spies recognized the voice of the Levite, who received them, inquired 
of Jehovah respecting the issue of their journey, and gave them a 
favorable response. The spies having accomplished their mission, 
600 men of war started from the Danite cities of Zorah and Eshtaol, 
and, after a halt at Kirjath-jearim in Judah, they entered Mount 
Ephraim; and as they passed by the house of Micah, they stole his 
carved image, ephod, and teraphim, and enticed his priest to go with 
them. Having taken the city of Laish by surprise, and called it by 
the new name of Dan, they set up there the graven image, and estab- 
lished a sanctuary for themselves, and probably for others of the 
northern tribes, all the time that the tabernacle remained at Shiloh. 
The family of the Levite, whose name was Jonathan, the son of Ger- 
shom, the son of Moses, continued to be priests to the tribe of Dan 
down to the captivity. The circumstance of the priest's beiug grand- 
son of Moses helps to fix the time of the transaction to the earlier part 
of the period of the judges. The whole narrative affords a lively pic- 
ture of the frightful state of anarchy into which the nation had fallen ; 
while it presents us, in the case of Micah, with a specimen of the fam- 
ily life of the Israelites in the country districts. 

II. The Extermination of the Benjamites. A certain 
^ Levite of Mount Ephraim had taken a concubine from 
Bethlehem-judah. Having proved unfaithful to him, she returned 
to her father's house at Bethlehem, and remained there four months. 
At length the Levite went to propose a reconciliation and to fetch 
her home. He was gladly welcomed by his father-in-law ; and we 
are presented with another interesting picture of Hebrew interior life. 
After three days' feasting together, and another two days' prolonga- 
tion of the visit at the pressing instance of the host, the Levite at 
length resisted his entreaties to remain another night, and departed 
toward the evening of the fifth day. He travelled with his concubine, 
his servant, and two saddled asses ; and as night came on, they found 
themselves over against Jebus. Refusing the proposal of his servant 
to ask hospitality from the natives, the man entered Gibeah at sunset, 
to meet with worse treatment than he could have feared from the 
most licentious heathen. It would seem that the tribes had already 



222 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

begun to regard each other with the mutual jealousy of foreigners. 
Proverbial as is the hospitality of those countries and races, the little 
party sat down in the street or open square of the city, without being 
offered a lodging (which was all they needed, for they had food and 
provender with them) by any of the Benjamites. At length an old 
fellow-countryman from Mount Ephraim, who lived in the city, as 
he was returning from his work in the field, found the wayfarers in 
the street, and learning who they were, took them home and showed 
them all the duties of hospitality. Now the men of the city were 
" men of Belial," and had fallen into the worst vices of Sodom. When 
night came on they surrounded the old man's house, and knocking at 
the door, demanded that he should bring forth the stranger that they 
might know him. The good old man, to prevent such an outrage 
upon his guest, went out to the crowd, and offered to deliver to them 
his virgin daughter and the Levite's concubine to use at their pleas- 
ure, provided they would not offer any violence to his guest. They 
refused to accept this offer, however, and the Levite, in order to save 
himself, turned out his concubine amongst them. They abused her 
all night, not letting her go till the break of day. Then staggering 
back to the house where her lord lay, she fell down dead at the door, 
her hands lying upon the threshold. 

The Levite, opening the door and seeing her lie there, concluded 
she was asleep, and bade her get up that they might be going. But 
when he perceived she was dead, he took her up, and making no com- 
plaint there, laid her on one of the asses, and hastened home with all 
speed. Then, determined to avenge the terrible wrong that had been 
done him in the person of his concubine, he cut her body into twelve 
pieces, and sent them to the twelve tribes of Israel, who cried with 
one voice that no such deed had been done or seen since the children 
of Israel came up out of Egypt. With a unanimity which recalls the 
spirit shown in resenting the supposed defection of the two and a half 
tribes, the whole congregation of Israel, from Dan to Becrsheba, 
gathered together at Mizpeh, where all the men of war, to the number 
of 400,000, presented themselves before Jehovah. Having called 
upon the Levite to recount his wrong, they bound themselves by a 
solemn vow of vengeance ; resolved not to separate till it was fulfilled ; 
and chose by lot one man in every ten to find provisions for the host. 
First, however, they sent messages through all the tribe of Benjamin, 
to demand the surrender of the culprits; but the Benjamites espoused 
the cause of the men of Gibeah with that fierceness and obstinacv 

■ 

which appear so often in their history, justifying the prophecy of 



THE EARLIER JUDGES. 223 

Jacob, " Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf." They drew to a head at 
Gibeah, to the number of 26,000 fighting men, besides those of the 
city, who numbered 700. It is particularly recorded that there 
were 700 left-handed men, who could sling stones to a hair-breadth. 

The other tribes assembled at the sanctuary of Shiloh, where the 
ark then was, Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, being high-priest ; and in 
reply to their inquiry of the oracle of God, Judah was directed to lead 
the attack on Benjamin. Then followed a struggle almost unexampled 
in the history of civil wars. The army of Israel having been arrayed 
against Gibeah, the Benjamites sallied out and defeated them, slaying 
22,000 men. They rallied their forces in the same place, and spent 
the next day in weeping before God ; while the tone of their inquiry, 
" Shall I go up again to battle against the children of Benjamin my 
brother f" seems to show some misgiving. But the oracle bade them 
renew the attack, and for the second time they were defeated with the 
loss of 18,000 men. Again the whole congregation assembled at 
Shiloh to keep a solemn fast, with burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, 
and again they consulted the oracle through Phinehas the high-priest. 
They were bidden to fight again, and assured of victory on the morrow. 
They arranged a stratagem, like that by which Joshua took Ai. An 
ambush was set near Gibeah, while the main army were drawn up as 
before. This time their flight was feigned. The Benjamites pursued 
them, slaying about thirty men, till they were drawn from the city, 
over which was now seen to rise the column of smoke, which first 
apprised them of the stratagem, and was the signal of its success. 
The Israelites turned upon their pursuers, who were stricken with a 
panic, and fled toward the wilderness. They were met by the other 
body, who had sacked Gibeah, and 18,000 of them were left dead upon 
the field. 5000 fell on the highways ; and 2000 more were slain, 
apparently in a last rally at Gidom. The 600 men, who were all now 
left of the 25,700 warriors of the tribe, fled to the rock of Rimmon, 
in the wilderness, and remained there four months ; while the Israel- 
ites burnt their cities, and put the inhabitants and cattle to the sword. 

At length their anger began to turn to pity, and they 
B.C. 1406 (?) * . * ° v *' n J 

assembled again at the sanctuary to mourn before uou, 

because a tribe was cut off from Israel. Its total extinction seemed 

inevitable ; for, when they made the league at Mizpeh, they had bound 

themselves by a curse not to give their daughters in marriage to the 

Benjamites. But a remedy was found in another curse which they 

had imprecated on any of the tribes who neglected to come up to the 

battle. On numbering the people, it was found that the men of 



224 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Jabesh-gilead were absent. That city was devoted to destruction : 12,000 
men were sent against it, with orders to destroy all the men and women, 
except virgins ; and these, amounting to 400, were given for wives 
to the remnant of the Benjamites. The remaining 200 were provided 
for by the Benjamites seizing the maidens of Shiloh, who came out of 
the city to dance at one of the great annual feasts ; the elders of Israel 
suggested the scheme, and made peace with the fathers of the maidens. 
The children of Israel then departed to their homes. The Benjamites 
returned to their inheritance, and repaired their cities. They regained 
something of their old martial fame, and gave Israel its second judge, 
Ehud, and its first king, Saul, the son of Kish ; but they never recov- 
ered from this terrific blow. After hesitating between the two power- 
ful tribes whose territories they parted, and ranging themselves at first 
on the side of Ephraim, they at last subsided, like the Simeonites, into 
a position entirely subordinate to Judah, and their territory was ab- 
sorbed in Judaea. Down to the latest period of Jewish history their 
crime was remembered as marking the time from which Israel began 
to sin, and the righteous indignation of the other tribes was commem- 
orated as " the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity" 

We must guard, however, against the impression that such scenes 
as these describe the whole, or even the chief part, of the history of 
Israel under the Judges. In the book itself, the intervals during 
which " the land had rest " make up a large aggregate of years, 
though we are apt to overlook them from the brevity of each notice. 
These hints are in some degree filled up to a finished picture, in the 
exquisite scenes of rural tranquillity set before us in the Book of 
Ruth. The events there related are merely said to have happened 
"in the time of the Judges ; v but from the genealogies we gather 
that they fell in the generation after the troubles above related. 

A man named Eliinelech, an Ephrathite of Bethlehem-judah, had 
been driven by a famine into the country of Moab, with his wife 
Naomi, and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. The sons married 
women of Moab, named Orpah and Ruth ; and the family resided in 
that country for about ten years. The father died, and both his sons; 
and Naomi rose up to return to her own land. She gave leave to 
her daughters-in-law to go back to their families; but both declared 
they would return with her. On her urging the point, for their own 
sakes, Orpah bade her an affectionate farewell, and went back " to 
her people and her gods;" but Ruth cast in her lot wholly with 
Naomi. They reached Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest, 
and Ruth sought subsistence as a gleaner. What followed turns 



THE EARLIER JUDGES. 



225 




entirely upon the provisions of the Mosaic law for the " Levirate '" 
marriage of a widow and the redemption of her husband's inheritance 
by the " Goel," or nearest kinsman. A wealthy and powerful man 
of Bethlehem, named Boaz, whose grandfather, Nahshon, was prince 
of the tribe of Judah, was a very near kinsman (though not the 
nearest) to Naomi's deceased husband Elimelech, and consequently to 
Ruth, as the widow _-^£ 

of his son. It chanced ^- j- ^g " 

that Ruth went to =111^ 

glean in this man's 
field ; and the mind, 
distressed with the 
fatal story of other 
inhabitants of the 
same city, finds ex- 
quisite relief in the 
picture of Boaz visit- 
ing the gleaners, 
not like a grudging 
farmer, but in the 
spirit of kindness pre- 
scribed by Moses ; 
blessing them, and 
blessed by them in § 
the name of Jehovah. 
Ruth attracted his 
attention ; and when 
he learned who she 
was, he bade her 
glean only in his 
field, and enjoined 
the reapers to show 
her kindness. In re- 
ply to her thanks, he 
praised her devotion 

to her mother-in-law, and her coming to place her trust under the 
wings of Jehovah, God of Israel. Thus passed the whole harvest, 
Ruth following the reapers, who were instructed by Boaz to throw 
handfuls of corn in her way, and sharing their daily meal. Mean- 
while Naomi, full of gratitude to God, who had thus guided her to 
her husband's nearest kinsman, instructed Ruth to claim her rights 
15 




RUTH AND NAOMI. 



THE EARLIER JUDGES. 227 

under the Levirate law. Boaz blessed her in the name of Jehovah ; 

praised her virtue and her fidelity to him whom the law had made 

her rightful husband ; guarded the most scrupulous delicacy toward 

her ; and promised to do the part of a kinsman by her. 

In the morning he kept his word. We have a trulv 
b c 1312 (?) - . . 

w w patriarchal picture of this wealthy and powerful man 

of Bethlehem sitting, like Job, in the gate of the city ; and, as all the 
inhabitants came forth, calling first the " Goel," or nearest kinsman 
of Elimelech, to sit beside him, and then asking ten of the elders to 
take their seats, to witness and ratify the transaction. In their pres- 
ence, he informed the " Goel " that Naomi had a field to sell, which 
must be redeemed either by him or by Boaz himself; and the Goel 
consented to redeem it, thus admitting the claim of kindred. But 
when Boaz went on to say that, if the Goel took the field, he must 
take also Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, " to raise up the 
name of the dead upon his inheritance," the kinsman found an excuse, 
and transferred the right of redemption to Boaz. The ceremony pre- 
scribed by the law was then performed. The sandal of the kinsman 
was taken off in the presence of the elders and the people ; and Boaz 
called them to witness that he had bought of Naomi all that had 
belonged to Elimelech, and to his sons Chilion and Mahlon, and that 
he had purchased Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, to be his 
wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. The 
elders ratified the deed, invoking upon Ruth the blessing of Rachel 
and Leah, who had built the house of Israel, and that the house of 
Boaz might be made like that of his ancestor Pharez, the son of 
Judah. The blessing was fulfilled more highly than they thought. 
Ruth bore to Boaz a son, named Obed, the father of Jesse, the father 
of David ; and so Christ, " the son of David," derived his lineage 
from a Moabitish woman, who had shown a faith rarely found in 
Israel, and whose husband was the son of the harlot Rahab. 

From these scenes of Jewish life during this period we turn to the 
history of the Judges themselves. They were fifteen in number, 
Deborah, the prophetess, being reckoned with her male associate, 
Barak:— (1.) Othniel; (2.) Ehud; (3.) Shamgar; (4.) Deborah and 
Barak; (5.) Gideon; (6.) Abimelech; (7.) Tola; (8.) Jair; (9.) 
Jephthah; (10.) Ibzan ; (11.) Elon ; (12.) Abdon ; (13.) Samson; 
(14.) Eli; (15.) Samuel. The mission of each judge was preceded l>\ 
a period of oppression under a foreign conqueror. 

The first of these conquerors was Chushan-rishathaim, king of 
Aram-naharaim (Aram of the tivo rivers, i. e., Mesopotamia), the 



228 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

original home of the family of Abraham. Looking at the fact that 
Balaam was brought from Aram to curse the people, we may, per- 
haps, infer that this king was allied with those constant enemies of 
Israel, the Midianites and Moabites. After the people had served 
him eight years (b. c. 1402-1394), God raised up Othniel, Caleb's 
nephew, whose valor has already been mentioned, to be their deliverer, 
and the first judge. Of him it is recorded, what is not said of all the 
judges, that "the spirit of Jehovah was upon him." The land had 
rest under his government for forty years (b. c. 1394-1354); or 
rather, if our suggestion respecting the chronology be adopted, the 
whole period of the contest with Chushan-rishathaim and the judge- 
ship of Othniel extended over a total of forty years. 

1394 f 11 ^ e nex * enem y wno prevailed against Israel was 

JEglon, king of Moab, who formed a great league with 
the Ammonites and Amalekites. He crossed the Jordan, defeated the 
Israelites, and took possession of " the city of palm-trees," that is, prob- 
ably the site on which Jericho had formerly stood. His power endured 
for eighteen years, till a deliverer was raised up in Ehud, the son of 
Gera, who is reckoned the second judge. He was one of those left- 
handed, or ambidextrous Benjamites, already alluded to, and his skill 
with the left hand was fatal to the King of Moab. As a Benjamite, 
he was naturally deputed to carry a present to Eglon at Jericho, which 
lay within the territory of that tribe. He prepared a double-edged 
dagger, a cubit long, and girded it on his right thigh under his gar- 
ment. Having offered the present, he went away as far as " the 
graven images" at Gilgal, where he dismissed his attendants, and re- 
turned to the king, whom he found in the retirement of his summer 
parlor. On Ehud's telling him that he had a secret message to him from 
God, Eglon dismissed his attendants and rose to receive it with rev- 
erence, when Ehud plunged his dagger into the body of the king, whose 
obesity was such that the weapon was buried to the handle, and Ehud 
could not draw it out again. Ehud locked the doors of the summer 
parlor, and went out through the porch. It was long before the at- 
tendants ventured to break in upon the king's privacy ; and mean- 
while Ehud escaped beyond the graven images at Gilgal to Seirath, in 
Mount Ephraim. The children of Israel rallied at the sound of his 
trumpet in those highland fastnesses ; and he led them down into the 
plain. First seizing the fords of the Jordan, he fell upon the Moab- 
ites, who were completely defeated, with the loss of 10,000 of their 
best warriors. And so the land had rest for eighty years. It is to 
be observed that Ehud is not called a judge throughout the narrative, 



THE EARLIER JUDGES. 229 

but only a deliverer; still the way in which his death is mentioned at 
the beginning of the next chapter semes to imply that he held the 
regular power of a judge to the end of his life. 

The place of third judge is commonly assigned to Shamgar, the 
son of Anath, who delivered Israel from the tyranny of the Philis- 
tines, and displayed his strength by killing 600 of them with an ox- 
goad. But there seems no reason for reckoning this as a delive- 
rance of the whole land from a positive subjection. The Philistines 
were a constant " thorn in the side " to Israel on the southwest fron- 
tier, in addition to all the other enemies they had to encounter ; and 
it was not till the time of Eli and Samson and Samuel that they 
became the chief oppressors of the people. Shamgar is not call- 
ed a judge; and his exploits seem to have been of the same nature 
as those of Samson, irregular acts of personal prowess, having but 
little lasting effect on the condition of the people at large. His time 
and acts may, therefore, be safely included in the preceding period 
of eighty years. Accordingly the next captivity is said to have begun 
"after the death of Ehud." 

After the death of Ehud, the people were again sold for their sins, 
into the hand of the Canaanite Jabin, king of Hazor ; who, like his 
ancestor of the same name, was the head of a great confederacy in 
Northern Palestine. He had 900 war-chariots of iron, and his host 
was commanded by a mighty captain, named Sisera, who dwelt in 
Harosheth of the Gentiles, a city in the north deriving its epithet 
probably from its mixed population (like Galilee in later times), over 
whom Sisera ruled as a chieftain. Its site is supposed to have been 
on the western shore of the " waters of Merom," in the territory of 
Naphtali, in which also Hazor was situated. Here then we have not, 
as in the two former cases, an invasion from without, but the rebellion 
of a state already once subdued, a sad sign of the decay of Israel. 
For twenty years Jabin " mightily oppressed V the land ; but both his 
power and the life of his captain Sisera were given as a spoil to the 
hands of women. 

..o.| 6 At this time Israel was judged by a prophetess named 
Deborah, the "wife of Lapidoth, who is reckoned with 
Barak as the fourth judge. Her abode was under a palm-tree which 
bore her name, a well-known solitary landmark, between Ramah and 
Bethel ; and thither the people came to her for judgment. She .sent 
an inspired message to Barak, the son of Abinoam, of Kcdesh, in 
Naphtali, bidding him assemble 10,000 men of Naphtali and Zebulun 
at mount Tabor ; for Jehovah would draw Sisera and his host to 



230 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

meet him at the river Kishon, and would deliver them into his hand. 
Barak consented, only on the condition that Deborah would go with 
him to the battle, though she warned him that he would reap no 
honor, for Jehovah would sell Sisera into the hands of a woman. The 
forces of Zebulun, Naphtali, and Issachar were gathered together at 
Kedesh, with some help from the central tribes, Ephraim, Manasseh, 
and Benjamin, as well as from the half-tribe of Manasseh beyond 
Jordan. Those of the east and south took no part in the contest; 
Sisera advanced from Harosheth to the great plain of Esdraelon or 
Jezeel, which is drained by the river Kishon. He took up his posi- 
tion in the southwest corner of the plain near " Taanach by the waters 
of Megiddo," which were numerous rivulets flowing into the Kishon. 
Barak marched down from his camp on Mount Tabor with his 10,000 
men. " It was at this critical moment that (as we learn directly from 
Josephus and indirectly from the song of Deborah) a tremendous 
storm of sleet and hail gathered from the east, and burst over the 
plain, driving full in the face of the advancing Canaanites. ' The 
stars in their courses fought against Sisera.' The rain descended, the 
four rivulets of Megiddo were swelled into powerful streams, the 
torrent of the Kishon rose into a flood, the plain became a morass. 
The chariots and the horses, which should have gained the day for the 
Canaanites, turned against them. They became entangled in the 
swamp ; the torrent of Kishon — the torrent famous through former 
ages — swept them away in its furious eddies; and in that wild confu- 
sion l the strength ' of the Canaanites i was trodden down/ and the 
' horse-hoofs stamped and struggled by the means of the plungings and 
plungings of the mighty chiefs' in the quaking morass and the rising 
streams. Far and wide the vast army fled far through the eastern 
branch of the plain by Endor. There, between Tabor and the Little 
Hermon, a carnage took place long remembered, in which the corpses 
lay fattening the ground." 

Sisera escaped by dismounting from his chariot, and fled on foot to the 
tent of Heber the Kenite. This Arab sheikh had separated from the 
encampment of his brethren, the children of Hobab, the father-in- 
law of Moses, and removed northward to "the oaks of the wanderers" 
(Zaanaim), near Kedesh, preserving, it should seem, friendly relations 
both with the Jews and the Canaanites. At all events, it is distinctly 
stated that there was peace between Jabin and Heber; and Sisera 
fled to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber. Jael met him at the tent 
door, and pressed him to come in. He accepted the invitation, 
and she flung a mantle over him as he lay wearily on the floor. 



THE EARLIER JUDGES. 231 

When thirst prevented sleep, and he asked for water, she brought him 
buttermilk in her choicest vessel, thus ratifying the sacred bond of 
Eastern hospitality. But anxiety still prevented Sisera from compos- 
ing himself to rest until he had exacted a promise from his protectress 
that she would faithfully preserve the secret of his concealment ; till 
at last, with a feeling of perfect security, the weary and unfortunate 
general resigned himself to the deep sleep of misery and fatigue. 
Then it was that Jael took in her left hand one of the great wooden 
pins (in the Authorized Version " nail ") which fastened down the 
cords of the tent, and in her right hand the mallet (in the Authorized 
Version "a hammer") used to drive it into the ground, and creeping 
up to her sleeping and confiding guest, with one terrible blow dashed 
it through Sisera's temples deep into the earth. With one spasm of 
fruitless agony, with one contortion of sudden pain, " at her feet 
he bowed, he fell ; where he bowed, there he fell down dead." She 
then waited to meet the pursuing Barak, and led him into her tent 
that she might in his presence claim the glory of the deed. 

The narrative closes with the Song of Deborah and Barak, one of 
the most picturesque remains of Hebrew poetry, and deserves to rank 
with the song of Moses and Miriam. 

The land had rest forty years. The conclusion of this 

B C • i 

129P v>~fi period, in the received chronology (b. c. 1256), coincides 
nearly with the date assigned by our proposed scheme 
(b. c. 1251). To reconcile this with the reckoning of the twenty 
years of captivity to Jabin and Sisera, as a distinct period, its com- 
mencement is thrown back twenty years into the time of Ehud, and 
it is assumed that the oppression of Jabin only affected the northern 
tribes. But, besides what we deem the obvious inconsistency of this 
assumption with the whole tenor of the narrative, the matter seems 
to be decided by the express statement, that the beginning of Jabin's 
oppression was after the death of Ehud. 



232 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XV. 

THE JUDGES, FROM GIDEON TO JEPHTHAH. 

[b. c. 1256-1112.] 

HE peace purchased by the victory of Deborah and Barak was 
again misused by Israel, and the next scene of their history 
opens upon a more shameless idolatry, and a more complete 
r>? subjection to their enemies. The worship of Baal was pub- 
licly practised, and the people were ready to display zeal for 
the false god. They were now delivered over to their old enemies of 
the desert, the Midianites and the Amalekites, who came up every 

year in entire hordes, "as locusts for multitude," with 
b c 1^56 

their cattle and their tents, covering the whole breadth 

of the land as far as Gaza and devouring its produce, so that the Isra- 
elites had no food left, nor sheep, nor ox, nor ass. The only refuge 
of the people was in dens, and caves, and fortresses in the mountains. 
This oppression lasted for seven years. Once more the people cried 
to Jehovah, who sent a prophet to reprove them for the evil return 
they had made for their deliverance from Egypt. But the reproof 
was the prelude to effectual aid. 

As in the former oppressions, there were still stout hearts in Israel 
ready to come forth at the call of Jehovah. Such a man was Gideon, 
the son of Joash, of the distinguished family of the Abi-ezrites, at 
Ophrah, in the tribe of Manasseh. He was grown up, and had sons, 
and had obtained the character of " a mighty man of valor." Gideon 
was threshing corn in his father's wine-press to hide it from the 
Midianites, when he saw an " angel of Jehovah " sitting under an 
oak which formed a landmark, who saluted him with the words, 
u Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valor." " If Jehovah 
be with us," pleaded Gideon, " why is all this befallen us, and where 
are all his wonders that our fathers told us?" The reply was a com- 
mand to go in his might and save Israel from the Midianites, for he 
was sent by God. Gideon pleaded the poor estate of his family, and 
his own lowly position in his father's house ; but the reply was a re- 
newed promise of God's presence, and an assurance that he should 
smite the Midianites. These words, spoken by the angel in his own 



JUDGES — GIDEON TO JEPHTHAH. 233 

name, could have left little doubt in Gideon's mind concerning the 
quality of his visitant. He prayed him to give a sign of his favor 
by accepting, not any ordinary refreshment, but a " meat-offering " 
of unleavened cakes, with a kid, and the broth in which it was boiled 
for a drink offering. These things the angel commanded him to lay 
upon a rock in the very form of a sacrifice prescribed by the law, and 
at the touch of the angel's staff they were consumed by fire which 
burst out of the rock, and the angel vanished from his sight. When 
Gideon knew that he had spoken with the Angel Jehovah he 
feared that he should die, because he had seen Jehovah face to face ; 
and on receiving the divine assurance of peace, he built an altar on 
the spot where the sacrifice had been offered, and called it Jehovah 
Shalom, Jehovah [is our~\ peace. It was still to be seen at Ophrah 
when the Book of Judges was written. 

The altar thus directly sanctified by God himself became, of course, 
a lawful place of sacrifice, and Gideon was invested for the time with 
a sort of priesthood, apparently in contrast with his father's position 
as priest of Baal, for the altar of Baal in Ophrah belonged to Joash. 
By a dream or vision in the following night, Gideon was commanded 
to take his father's " second bullock of seven years old " (probably 
one devoted to Baal), and, having overthrown the altar of Baal, and 
cut up the Asherah, or wooden image of the goddess Ashtoreth, to 
use its fragments for burning the bullock as a sacrifice upon the altar 
of Jehovah. Aided by ten of his servants, he performed this deed 
by night, for fear of his father's household and the men of the city. 
In the morning all was discovered, and the men of the city came to 
Joash, damanding the life of Gideon. But Joash replied by the 
argument, so conclusive against idols, and so often since repeated 
both in word and deed, " Let Baal plead his own cause." The citi- 
zens seem to have shared the conviction which led Joash to take his 
son's part ; and Gideon's new name of Jerubbaal, that is, Let Baal 
plead, at once commemorated the triumph of the day, and became a 
watchword to deride the impotence of the false god. 

Whether in consequence of this deed, or in the ordinary course of 
their annual invasion, the Medianites and Amalekites, with all the 
nomad nations east of Palestine, mustered their forces and pitched 
in the valley of Jezreel. Then " the spirit of Jehovah clothed Gideon," 
and his trumpet called round him the house of the Abi-czrites. By 
means of messengers, he gathered Manasseh and the northern tribes 
who had followed Barak ; but now even Asher came with Zebulun 
and Naphtali; and he encamped on Mount Gilboa., overlooking the 



234 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



myriad tents that whitened the plains of Esdraelon. Before the con- 
flict, Gideon prayed for a sign that God would save Israel by his 
hand. He spread a fleece of wool on his threshing-floor, and asked 
that it might be wet with dew while the earth around was dry, and 
in the morning he wrung a bowlful of water from the fleece. 

At Gideon's renewed prayer, put up in the same spirit in which 
Abraham pleaded for Sodom, the sign was repeated in a form which 
puts the miracle beyond all cavil. Heavy dews are common enough 
in the highlands of Palestine, and water has been wrung out of clothes 
that have been exposed throughout the night ; but when the fleece re- 
mained dry, while the earth around was wet with dew, there could be 
no doubt that the required sign had been vouchsafed by God. 

So remarkable a test must surely 
have been more than merely arbi- 
trary ; but its significance is not 
very evident. " His own charac- 
ter," says Dean Stanley, "is well 
indicated in the sign of the fleece — 
cool in the heat of all around, dry 
when all around were damped with 
fear. Throughout we see three 
great qualities, decision, caution 
and magnanimity." 

On the morning of the decisive 
day Gideon was encamped by the 
" well of trembling " (Harod, prob- 
ably Ain-Julud), as the spring was 
called from what ensued, at the 
head of 32,000 men. But these 
forces were not destined to gain 
another such victory as that over Sisera in the same plain. The repe- 
tition of Deborah's eulogy on the men of the north would have made 
them vaunt themselves against Jehovah, saying, " Mine own hand 
hath saved me," when in truth they were wanting in the first requisite 
of courage. Accordingly, when Gideon proclaimed at God's command, 
" Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let himself return and depart early 
from Mount Gilead," 22,000 slunk away. We feel sure that Asher 
went, to a man ; and, by a curious coincidence, those who remained 
were the same number as the 10,000 chosen warriors of Zebulun and 
Xaphtali that had followed Barak. Still Jehovah said that the peo- 
ple were too many, and they were brought to another test by their 




GIDEON'S FLEECE. 



JUDGES — GIDEON TO JEPHTHAH. 23# 

manner of drinking at the " well of trembling/ 7 All those who knelt 
down to drink were rejected, and those who lifted the water in their 
hands and lapped it like a dog were set apart for the service. They 
proved to be only 300, and thus Gideon was left with the same num- 
ber that* remained with Leonidas at Thermopylae. They took their 
provisions and trumpets, and waited for the night. 

At nightfall God commanded Gideon to go down with his servant 
Phurah to the host of Midian, where he overheard a man relate a 
dream to his comrade, from which he learned that God had already 
stricken the Midianites with terror at "the sword of Gideon, the son 
of Joash," and he returned to tell the Israelites that Jehovah had de- 
livered Midian into their hand. He formed a plan admirably adapted 
to cause in the demoralized host one of those panics to which the un- 
disciplined armies of the East have always been liable. Dividing his 
300 men into three bands, he furnished each man with a trumpet and 
a torch shrouded by a pitcher, thus forming a dark lantern, and bade 
them all, at the signal of his trumpet, to sound their trumpets too, and 
to shout his battle-cry, " The sword of Jehovah and of Gideon," at the 
same time breaking the pitchers that covered their lights. Just as the 
middle watch was set, they took their posts on three sides of the host 
of Midian. The sudden shouts and flashing lights bewildered the 
Midianites ; and as Gideon's handful of men stood firm with the torches 
in their left hands and the trumpets in their right, they " ran and cried 
and fled." ]STo attack was needed. Their own swords were turned 
against each other as they fled down the pass leading to the Jordan to 
the "house of the acacia" (Beth-shittah) and the "meadow of the 
dance " (Abel-meholah). 

While Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh gathered them- 
selves in pursuit of the Midianites, Gideon sent word to 
the men of Ephraim to seize the " waters" as far as Beth-barah and 
Jordan. There a second battle ended in the capture of the chieftains 
Oreb and Zeeb (the Raven and the Wolf, names doubtless answering 
to their standards). They were slain at spots which thenceforth bore 
their names, and their heads were sent to Gideon. 

That leader had already passed the Jordan in pursuit of Midian, 
after pacifying, by one of those proverbial phrases which in the East 
serve for conclusive arguments, the complaints of the men of Ephraim 
because he had not called them to the battle. The two great sheikhs 
of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, had escaped to the eastern side of 
Jordan with 15,000 men, all that were left of their hosts. Faint, but 
still pressing the pursuit, Gideon and his chosen 300 arrived at Succoth 



236 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

(Sahut), whose princes refused them supplies for fear of the Midianites. 
The like scene was repeated at Penuel, the city whose name commem- 
orated Jacob's wrestling with Jehovah ; and Gideon left both places 
with threats of signal vengeance. He found the Midianites encamped 
in careless security at Karkor, somewhere in the southern part of the 
desert highlands east of the Jordan, frequented by the pastoral tribes 
" that dwelt in tents." Passing up out of the Jordan valley by one of 
the lateral wadys east of Nobah and Jogbehah, he fell upon them un- 
awares and gained a third great victory. Zebah and Zalmunna were 
taken prisoners, and led back in triumph before sunrise to be shown 
to the men of Succoth and Penuel, who now suffered the penalty ot 
their cowardice in the form which Gideon had promised. At Succoth 
he " taught " the princes who had refused him succor " with thorns 
and briers of the wilderness," and at Penuel he broke down the great 
tower which was its strength and pride, and slew the men of the city. 
" It is not clear that he did not subject the men of Succoth to the same 
doom, after having dealt with them according to his threat. He might 
have done it indeed in the execution of his threat, for there was an 
ancient punishment in which death was inflicted by laying the naked 
bodies of the offenders under a heap of thorns, briers, and prickly 
bushes, and then drawing over them threshing-sledges and other heavy 
implements of husbandry." Dr. Kitto adds that the idea of a punish- 
ment which must appear so strange to us is not unnaturally suggested 
in the East, where men are continually lacerating^ their half-clothed 
bodies with thorns in passing through thickets. 

Gideon dealt next with Zebah and Zalmunna. Bringing them to 
a sort of trial, he asked what kind of men they were whom they had 
slain at Mount Tabor. " Such as thou art ; each one like the chil- 
dren of a king," was the reply by which they sealed their fate while 
seeking to flatter their conqueror. " They were my brethren, the 
sons of my mother," exclaimed Gideon ; and he called on Jether, his 
first-born son, to rise up and slay them. The youth hesitated, and 
the kings prayed Gideon to slay them with his own manly hand. 
Having killed them, he took off the ornaments shaped like the moon, 
which hung upon their camels' necks, for a use which will presently 
appear. 

This deliverance was the greatest, and the three victories the most 
signal that Israel had known since the time of Joshua, and they are 
often referred to in the after records of the nation, and celebrated in 
their hymns of praise. 

The people's gratitude to their deliverer displayed itself in a form 



JUDGES — GIDEON TO JEPHTHAH. 237 

which shows how fast they were approaching the revolution which 
Moses had foreseen and provided for, even while he warned them 
against it. They offered Gideon the rank of a hereditary king : 
— " Eule thou over us ; both thou, and thy son, and thy son's son 
also." The answer shows that Gideon himself remembered with 
reverence the great principle of the theocracy : — " I will not rule over 
you, neither shall my son rule over you : Jehovah shall rule over you." 
He was content with the position of a judge, and, in the succession 
of the judges, he is reckoned as the fifth and greatest, being excelled 
by Samuel in holiness of character, but by none in dignity and 
prowess. His princely appearance has been already mentioned, and 
he dwelt in his own house in all the dignity of a numerous harem. 
He had a family of seventy sons, besides Abimelech, the son of his 
concubine at Shechem. This departure from domestic simplicity 
brought its retribution in the next generation. The only other blot 
on the character of Gideon was his mistaken, though doubtless well- 
intentioned, innovation on divine worship. Presuming, probably, on 
his having been permitted to build an altar and to offer sacrifice, he 
made a jewelled ephod, adorned with 1700 shekels of gold, which 
the people gave him from their share of the spoils of Midian, besides 
the ornaments he had taken from off the kings and their camels. 
The Israelites came from all quarters to consult the ephod, and 
Gideon and his house were thus enticed into a system of idolatrous 
worship. 

The rule of Gideon or Jerubbaal lasted forty years, during which 
time the Midianites never lifted their heads again. The complete 
tranquillity of the period from the defeat of the Midianites to the 
death of Gideon is expressed in the statement that Jehovah had de- 
livered the people " out of the hands of all their enemies on every side" 
which seems quite to exclude the notion of wars going on at the same 
time in other parts of Israel. He died in a good old age, and was 
buried at his native city of Ophrah. During his life Israel remained 
true to Jehovah, and at peace with their neighbors, but after his 
death they fell away into idolatry, and installed Baalberith as their 
national god. 

Gideon, by several wives, had seventy sons ; and by a concubine 
he had one son, whom he named Abimelech. Though Gideon had 
refused the crown of Israel for himself and his sons, Abimelech 
coveted it. He repaired to his mother's family at Shechem, and told 
them that his brethren would usurp the government over them, and 
advised them to consider whether it would not be better to be gov- 



238 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

erned by one man than by seventy, and at the same time reminded 
them that he was one of themselves. The result was that his relatives 
entered into a conspiracy with him to make him king, and provided 
him with a band of hired desperadoes, the money for the purpose 
being furnished out of the treasury of Baalberith. 

With these ruffians he marched to his father's house, and seized 
sixty-nine of his brethren, and slew them upon one stone, the other, 
Jotham, having succeeded in making his escape. Gideon's house 
being now destroyed with the exception of Jotham, the Shechemites 
made Abimelech their king, at an assembly at Millo. 

When Jotham heard of the murder of his brethren, and 

b c 1 9 09 . . 

the choice of Abimelech by the Shechemites to be their 

king, he went to the top of Mount Gerizim, where, in a parabolical 
oration, he represented to the Shechemites how his father Jerubbaal 
had refused to have the government settled upon him and his family; 
and that they had now disposed of it to one as much inferior in virtue 
and honor to Gideon and his lawful sons, as the bramble is to the 
olive, fig-tree, or vine; he then expostulated with them on the injury 
done to his family. If they had dealt well with the house of Jerub- 
baal, who had saved them, in killing his sons and choosing the son 
of his maid-servant to rule over them, then let them rejoice in their 
king ! But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the 
men of Shechem and the house of Millo, and let them, in their turn, 
devour him ! Having said these things, Jotham fled to Beer, and we 
hear of him no more. 

His curse was not long in being fulfilled. After three vears God 
sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, to 
avenge upon both the murder of the sons of Jerubbaal. The Shechem- 
ites revolted from Abimelech, and plotted against his life. Bands 
of men lay in wait for him in the passes on the neighboring hills, and 
robbed all travellers while Abimelech was absent from the city. The 
insurgents found a leader in Gaal, the son of Ebed, who, in the ex- 
citement of a vintage feast in the temple of Baal, while the people 
mingled curses on Abimelech with their songs and merriment, openly 
declared that it would be better to serve the old princes of the city, 
the family of Hamor, the father of Shechem, and declared that he 
would dethrone Abimelech. But Abimelech had still a strong party 
in the city ; and Zebul, the governor, sent privately to inform him 
of the words of Gaal, and of the preparations to defend the city. 
Abimelech surrounded Shechem by night, and defeated Gaal and the 
Shechemites with great loss when they came out to meet him. What 



JUDGES — GIDEON TO JEPHTHAH 239 

follows is obscure. While Abimelech remains at Arumah, Zebul 
expels Gaal and his party, but the city is still hostile to Abimelech. 
It would seem as if the old Amorite population had now got the 
upper hand, and had resolved to hold it to the last. But Abimelech 
took the city by a stratagem, and utterly destroyed it, slaying all the 
inhabitants, except about a thousand men and women, who had taken 
refuge in a tower sacred to Baalberith. Abimelech led his army to 
Mount Zalmon, and, ordering his men to follow his example, he 
cut down a bough, and each of the men having done the same, they 
piled up the wood against the tower and burnt it, with all who were 
within. 

The cruel deed was soon avenged. Abimelech had besieged The- 
bez, where also there was a tower to which the people fled when the 
city was taken. Abimelech had approached the wall to apply fire as 
at Shechem, when a woman threw down a piece of a millstone upon 
his head and broke his skull. In the agony of death, he had just 
time to call upon his armor-bearer to dispatch him with his sword, 
that it might not be said of him " a woman slew him." Thus God 
rendered both to Abimelech and the Shechemites their wickedness in 
slaying the sons of Jerubbaal. " The bramble Abimelech, the only 
one in the line of the judges who attained to greatness without any 
public services," had devoured the men who elevated him, and had 
been devoured by them. 

He is commonly reckoned as the sixth judge, but it may be ques- 
tioned whether his lawless usurpation, extending but little beyond 
Shechem, justifies the title : and not a word is said of his being raised 
up by Jehovah, or of the spirit of God coming upon him. Of his 
relations to Israel in general we are told nothing, for no conclusion 
can be fairly drawn from the isolated mention of his reigning " over 
Israel." But the conclusion of his story seems to imply a combined 
action against the tyrant : "And when the men of Israel saw that 
Abimelech was dead, they departed every man unto his place." 

Among the six judges who succeeded Abimelech, Jephthah's is the 
only conspicuous name. Of the two who preceded him, the first was 
Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, of the tribe of Issachar, who 
dwelt at Shamir, in Mount Ephraim, and judged Israel twenty-three 
years. He was the seventh judge; and, though he is said to have 
arisen to defend (or deliver) Israel, there is no mention of any enemy 
who oppressed them in his time. His judgeship may therefore be 
regarded as a continuance of the period of quiet obtained by the vic- 
tories of Gideon. 



240 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

This is true also of the eighth judge, Jair, a man of Gilead, on the 
east of Jordan, who is not even called a deliverer. The peaceful 
character of his twenty-two years' rule is further indicated by the 
dignified state in which he maintained his family of thirty sons, who 
rode on white asses, and had dominion over thirty cities of Mount 
Gilead, which retained the name of the " villages of Jair " (Hiavoth- 
Jair). 

The whole analogy of this period of the history of Israel leaves no 

doubt that so long an interval of rest would involve a more serious 

declension than any of those before it. Accordingly we find them 

serving all the gods of all the nations around them, " Baalim and 

Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, of Sidon, of Moab, of the Beni- 

ammi, and of the Philistines," except Jehovah ; him they forsook, and 

served not. This time the punishment was as signal as the crime. 

Two nations at once attacked Israel on the west and on the east — the 

Philistines and the children of Ammon. Of the former we shall soon 

hear again. The oppression of the latter lasted for eighteen years, 

especially in the land of Gilead, on the east of Jordan. But they 

also passed the Jordan, and fought against the tribes of Judah, 

Benjamin, and Ephraim, so that Israel was sore distressed. 

Nor was their cry of penitence at once successful. They 
b c 1143 

were told (probably by the mouth of a prophet) to cry to 

the gods whom they had chosen. Once more they humbled them- 
selves before Jehovah, confessing their sin, and praying him to de- 
liver them only this once ; and they proved their repentance by 
putting away the false gods from among them and serving Jehovah ; 
"And his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel," is the powerful 
figure of the sacred record. The two nations gathered their forces for 
a decisive contest ; the sons of Ammon in Gilead, and the Israelites 
in Mizpeh. A captain alone was wanting, and the people and princes 
of Gilead offered to make the man who would lead them against the 
Ammonites the head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. 

Now there was in Gilead a man who had given proofs of the high- 
est valor in a predatory war against the neighboring tribes. This 
was Jephthah, the son of Gilead by a concubine of the lowest class. 
On his father's death, he had been thrust out by his legitimate breth- 
ren, and fleeing to the land of Tob, apparently on the border of the 
Beni-ammi, he became the leader of a band of " vain persons," such 
as afterward resorted to David at Adullam, and who obtained their 
living as freebooters, preying on the Ammonites — a mode of life not 
disgraceful in the East then, any more than now. When war broke 




^^^^m 



16 



2H 



242 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

out with the Beni-amini, the elders of Gilead sent to Jephthah, and 
prevailed on him, with some difficulty, to become their leader. He 
exacted from them an oath, in confirmation of the promise that their 
deliverer should be head over all Gilead ; and when he joined the army 
at Mizpeh, the oath was ratified before Jehovah at that sacred place. 

Jephthah first sent messengers to the King of Ammon to demand 
by what right he made war on Israel, and the discussion that followed 
is an important passage for the history of the war under Moses on the 
east of Jordan. The Ammonite averred that Israel had at that time 
taken away his land along the Jordan between the Arnon and the 
Jabbok, and demanded its restoration. Jephthah replied that Israel 
had taken nothing either from Moab or from Ammon. p They had 
driven out Sihon, king of the Amorites, and possessed his land from 
the Arnon to the Jabbok, and from Jordan to the wilderness. Since 
Jehovah had dispossessed the Amorites before Israel, was Ammon to 
take the land ? Xo ! let them take what Chemosh, their god, would 
give them, and we will hold all that Jehovah our God shall give us. 
Israel had dwelt for 300 years in the territories of Heshbon, Aroer, 
and all the cities north of the Arnon : why had not Ammon recovered 
them within that time ? In fine, said Jephthah, we have not wronged 
you, but you wrong us in making war ; let u Jehovah the Judge " be 
judge between us. 

The appeal was in vain. Then the spirit of Jehovah came on 
Jephthah, and he went through Gilead and Manasseh, and mustered 
their forces at Mizpeh, whence he marched against Ammon. As he 
set forth, he made that rash vow which has ever since been associated 
with his name, devoting to Jehovah, as a burnt offering, whosoever 
should come forth out of his door to meet him, if he returned in peace 
a victor over the Beni-ammi. His expedition was crowned with 
complete success : Jehovah delivered Ammon into his hands : he de- 
feated them with great slaughter; and he took from them twenty 
cities, from Aroer on the Arnon to Minnith and the "plain of the 
vineyards " (Abel-keramim), and entirely subjected them to Israel 
from that time to the reign of Saul. 

Jephthah returned a victor to his house at Mizpeh, to receive the 
promised supremacy over Gilead, and alas ! to pay his rash vow to 
Jehovah. For, as he approached his house, his own daughter came 
out to meet him with timbrels and with dances, like another Miriam ; 
and, to make the blow more terrible, she was his only child. Our 
natural horror at the consequences of such a meeting is mitigated by 
the sublime scene of resignation that passed between the rash father 



JUDGES — GIDEON TOJEPHTHAH. 243 

and the submissive daughter. " Alas, my daughter ! thou hast brought 
me very low," cried Jephthah, as he rent his clothes ; " and thou art 
one of them that trouble me : for I have opened my mouth unto Je- 
hovah, and I cannot go back." " My father !" she replied, " if thou 
hast opened thy mouth unto Jehovah, do to me according to the word 
which hath proceeded out of thy mouth." To crown such a victory 
as God had given to Israel, she grudged not her own sacrifice. She 
only prayed for a respite of two months, that she might wander over 
the mountains of Gilead with the companions whom she had fondly 
led out to swell the chorus of her father's victory, bewailing that which, 
to a Hebrew woman, was the worst part of her doom, the loss of the 
hope of offspring, and so of the possible honor of being the mother of 
the Messiah. At the end of the two months she returned to her father, 
* who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed" words 
which can leave no possible doubt of her fate. The custom was 
established in Israel that the daughters of Israel went out every year 
for four days to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. 

Some persons mindful of the enrolment of Jephthah among the 
heroes of faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as well as of the expres- 
sion " the Spirit of the Lord came upon him," have heretofore scrupled 
to believe that he could be guilty of such a sin as the murder of his 
child. But the deed is recorded without approval, and it becomes 
only a moral difficulty to those who persist in the false principle, 
already more than once referred to, of identifying the record of actions 
in Scripture with their adoption. It should be recollected that Jeph- 
thah was a rude Gileadite whose spirit had become hardened by his 
previous life as a freebooter. 

The victory over the Beni-ammi was followed, like Gideon's over 
the Midianites, by fierce jealousy on the part of the men of Ephraim 
because they had not been called to share the enterprise, and the rough 
warrior had not the same skill to turn aside their wrath. They threat- 
ened to burn Jephthah's house over his head, and taunted the men of 
Gilead with being outcasts of the tribe of Joseph, apparently in allusion 
to their predatory habits. The Ephraimites were utterly defeated in 
Gilead, and the men of Gilead, seizing the fords of Jordan, put the fugi- 
tives to that curious test which shows that differences of dialect already 
existed among the tribes, and which has passed into a proverb for minor 
differences in the Church. Every one who demanded a passage westward 
was asked, " Are you an Ephraimite ?" If he said, " No," he was re- 
quired to pronounce the Shibboleth (a stream or flood), and, on his betray- 
ing himself by saying Sibboleth, he was put to death, " for he could 



244 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

not frame to pronounce it right." The whole loss of Ephraiin in this 
campaign was 42,000 men. It seems to have been characteristic of 
that tribe to hold back from great enterprises, and yet arrogating to 
themselves a sort of supremacy as the representatives of Joseph, to be 
bitterly jealous of their brethren's success. 

Jephthah lived six years as judge, and was buried in Mount Gilead. 

A bare mention will suffice of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth judges, 
who came between Jephthah and Samson. 

X. Ibzax, of Bethlehem, in Zebulun, judged Israel for seven years, 
and was buried in Bethlehem. Like Jair, he used his position for the 
aggrandizement of his family, which consisted of thirty sons and 
thirty daughters. He married his daughters abroad, and took wives 
for his sons from abroad, that is, among the surrounding nations. 

XL He was succeeded by another Zebulonite, Elox, who judged 
Israel ten years, and was buried at Aijalon, in Zebulun, which seems 
to have been named after him. The two words only differ in the 
vowel points, and the Vulgate identifies them. 

XII. Abdox, the son, of Hillel, the Pirathonite. judged 

B C . 

MOrt '~ Israel for ei^ht vears i'b. c. 1120-1112). He also had a 
11:20-111-. , ^ * . 

family of forty sons and thirty nephews, who rode on sev- 
enty white asses' colts. He is perhaps identical with Bedan, who is 
enumerated by Samuel among the judges. 

There is one feature in the history of this period which should not be 
overlooked : the remarkable silence of the Scripture narrative respecting 
the tribe of Judah, and those whose lot fell within its territory in the 
wider sense, namely, Simeon and Dan. While the scene changes be- 
tween the highlands of Zebulun and Xaphtali, the valley of Jezreel, 
fhe mountains of Ephraim, and those of Gilead, and while we have a 
succession of judges belonging to the northern, central, and eastern 
tribes, Judah is only once mentioned as suffering from the incursions 
of the Ammonites in the time of Jephthah. Only two explanations 
of this silence appear possible; that Judah retaining its distinction as 
the princely tribe, loyal to Jehovah, enjoyed a comparative exemption 
both from the sius and the sufferings of the other tribes, or, that it 
was occupied by its own conflicts with the Philistines. Xor do these 
alternatives necessarily exclude each other. ^Ve may well believe 
that there was a state of war, more or less constant, with the Philistines, 
sustained chiefly by Simeon and Dan, within whose lots they lay, while 
Judah formed a compact government under its own princes, in loyal 
union with the high-priest at Shiloh. The truth of this view will be 
seen in the subsequent history. 



JUDGES— ELI, SAMSON, AND SAMUEL. 245 




CHAPTER XVI. 

THE JUDGES— ELI, SAMSON, AND SAMUEL — THE PHILISTINE OPPKESSION. 

[b. c. 1161-1095.] 

E have now reached a point at which the history becomes most 
interesting and the chronology most difficult. We read that 
the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of Jehovah : 
and he delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty 
years. Then we have the story of the birth and exploits of 
Samson, the thirteenth judge, who is expressly said to have judged 
Israel twenty years, in the days of the Philistines. The fair inference 
from these words is, that the forty years' oppression of the 
Philistines is to be reckoned from the beginning of Sam- 
son's exploits against them, and that the story of his birth is retro- 
spective. The narrative of the Book of Judges ends with the death 
of Samson ; but the interposition of the supplemental chapters and 
of the Book of Puth breaks the connection of the story with its 
continuation in the Book of Samuel. There we find Israel under 
the government of Eli, who resided at Shiloh, by the tabernacle of 
Jehovah, and who was at once the high-priest, and the fourteenth 
judge, an office which he is said to have held for forty years, dying at 
the age of ninety-eight, at the time of the capture of the ark by the 
Philistines. Meanwhile Samuel had been born and dedicated to 
Jehovah, who made to him, while yet a youth, that signal revelation 
which established his character as a prophet of Jehovah. This 
revelation may be regarded also as Samuel's designation to his future 
office as the fifteenth judge of Israel, and hence we may explain the 
statement that "Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life." 

The time of his actual entrance on his office is not expressly named. 
If, as is commonly supposed, the first revelation of God was made to 
him shortly before the death of Eli, he would be too young to be 
Eli's immediate successor. But there is no necessity to make the 
interval so short. At all events, it was long enough to give time for 
Samuel to grow up and to establish his character as a prophet 
throughout all Israel; and if he was able to fulfil the part of a 
prophet, surely he could discharge the duties of a judge. We see no 



24$ HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

difficulty, therefore, in supposing that he at once succeeded Eli, and 
that he was then in his full manhood, about thirty years old, the 
period for entrance on public duties. The great victory which his 
prayers obtained at Eben-ezer, when "the Philistines were subdued, 
and came no more into the coast of Israel ... all the days of 
Samuel," seems clearlv to mark the end of the fortv years' servitude 
to them ; and it seems equally clear that this victory was gained 
twenty years after the capture of the ark. This victory may be re- 
garded as the culminating point of Samuel's administration ; and 
there seems no difficulty in supposing him to have been at least fifty 
years old at this time. 

From these views it would follow that the forty years' domination 
of the Philistines (the tenth of the twelve periods of forty years from 
the Exodus to the building of the Temple ) was about equally divided 
at the death of Eli, whose last twenty years (or, according' to the 
LXX., his whole administration) would thus be contemporary with 
the twenty years of Samson's judgeship. 

There is nothing surprising in this result. The exploits of Samson 
were so entirely of a personal character, as episodes in the constant 
war between the Philistines and the tribe of Dan, that his position is 
not at all inconsistent with the judgeship of Eli over Israel in general. 
Xor need we hesitate, if necessary, to carry back the first twenty 
years of Eli into the period of Jephthah and the three northern 
judges ; for it is a natural supposition that the southern tribes enjoyed 
a settled government, except as they were disturbed by the Philis- 
tines, under their own princes, subject to the authority of Jehovah as 
interpreted by the high-priest. It is also quite natural that the 
Philistines should have seized the occasion of Samson's death to make 
that great attack on Israel which leel to the capture of the ark, and 
the death of Eli and his sons; for the lose of 3000 men by the fall of 
the Temple of Dagon, though a terrible blow for the moment, would 
soon stimulate them to seek revenge. 

But a difficulty arises at the other end. The Scripture narrative 
assigns no exact period to the judgeship of Samuel, from the battL 
Eben-ezer to the election of Saul. AVe have a general description of 
his circuit- a- a judge; and then follows the misgovernment of Lis 
sons in his old age, which led the people to desire a king. We may 
fairly suppose that the complete establishment of his power w< 
soon lead to that association of his sons in the administration which 
caused such disastrous results; and he was already getting old. if the 
above computations be correct. Still the interval could hardly be 



JUDGES — ELI, SAMSON, AND SAMUEL. 247 

contained within our proposed scheme, if we must accept literally the 
forty years which St. Paul assigns to the reign of Saul. But the 
peculiar relations between Samuel and Saul make it reasonable to 
suppose that the whole time in which they led Israel, with more or 
less success, against the Philistines was reckoned as one period, and 
that the forty years assigned to Saul include also the government of 
Samuel from the victory over the Philistines at Eben-ezer. 

We return to the narrative, which could scarcely have been made 
intelligible without this discussion of the connection of its several 
threads. We have seen that the fierce conflicts in which the northern 
tribes and those east of Jordan were engaged with the heathen, under 
Barak, Gideon, and Jephthah, only partly involved the tribe of 
Ephraim, and scarcely touched the southern tribes of Judah, Dan, 
and Simeon. The part of the country which may be roughly marked 
off by a line drawn south of the valley of Shechem has a history of 
its own, upon which we have little light till the period we have now 
reached. In this region, though unquestionably not free from idol- 
atry, the authority of the high-priest at Shiloh seems to have been 
generally respected. That office was now held by Eli, a man of 
venerable age, of the house of Ithamar, Aaron's younger son. We 
are not told when the high-priesthood was transferred from the house 
of Eleazar to that of Ithamar; but we find that the arrangement had 
the divine sanction, and was only reversed as a judgment on the 
house of Eli. Himself a man of the most sincere piety, he was 
guilty of sinful weakness in the indulgence he showed to the vices 
of his sons, whose profligacy disgraced the priesthood and ruined 
the people. To the office of high-priest, Eli added that of judge; 
and, if the above computations are correct, he should be reckoned 
the thirteenth, rather than the fourteenth judge, having entered 
on his office about or soon after the birth of Samson. The post- 
ponement of Eli's history to that of Samson is the natural result 
of his intimate connection with Samuel, whose life begins the 
book that bears his name. 

While Eli was high-priest, it pleased God to raise up 
two champions for Israel whose characters form a con- 
trast far more remarkable than any of Plutarch's parallels. Alike in 
the divine announcement of their birth, in being devoted as Nazarites 
from the womb, and in being early clothed with the spirit of Jehovah, 
Samson and Samuel exhibit the two extremes of physical energy and 
moral power, with all the inherent weaknesses of the former, and the 
majestic strength of the latter. In Samson we see the utmost that 




218 



JUDGES — ELI, SAMSON, AND SAMUEL. 249 

human might can do, even as the instrument of the divine will ; in 
Samuel we behold the omnipotence of prayer. The great faults of 
the former seem almost inseparable from his physical temperament : 
the faultlessness of the latter is the fruit of a nature early disciplined 
into willing subjection to the laws of God. 

Samson, who is commonly considered the thirteenth judge, though 
more properly the fourteenth, belonged to that part of the tribe of 
Dan which had not migrated from its original allotment on the bor- 
ders of the Philistines between Judah and Ephraim. His father was 
Manoah, a man of Zorah, on the confines of Judah. Manoah's wife 
had long been barren, when she was favored with the visit of the 
Angel-Jehovah, announcing the birth of a son, who was to be 
devoted by the vow of " a Nazarite from the womb," and who should 
begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. She herself was to ab- 
stain from wine and strong drink, and from all unclean food ; and the 
child was to practise the same abstinence, and no razor was to come 
upon his head. 

The woman at once called her husband, and informed him of this 
extraordinary interview with the angel. Manoah was not so much 
surprised as overjoyed at the prospect of having a son, but had an 
earnest desire himself to see this divine messenger, his pretence for it 
being to be further instructed in the management of the child when 
he should be born. 

The angel was therefore sent again by God, and this time in a 
human shape, so that Manoah took him to be a man of God, and 
urged him to accept of his hospitality. The angel refused to receive 
anything, but advised him to express his gratitude to God by a burnt- 
offering. Accordingly Manoah prepared a kid and a meat-offering, 
which he offered as a sacrifice to God, and when the flame rose from 
the altar the angel ascended with it, and thus revealed his heavenly 
character to Manoah. 

Manoah was terrified, and feared death because they had seen 
God face to face ; but his wife, more calm and wiser than he, replied 
that if Jehovah had intended to destroy them he would not have 
accepted their offering, or have promised them so great a blessing. 
In due time, the child thus promised, was born, and named Samson, 
and he grew up blessed by Jehovah. 

Being come to man's estate he found the power of the Philistines 
firmly established over his own people — over all Israel. The princely 
tribe of Judah had sunk into submission ; and the hardy warriors of 
the tribe of Dan, were obliged to live as soldiers in the field, in the 



250 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

permanent camp which they had formed at Mahaneh-Dan (the camp 
of Dan), near Kirjath-jearim, in the central highlands, between Zorah 
and Eshtaol. Here the power of Jehovah began to move Samson at 
times. 

This divine inspiration, which is often mentioned in his history, 
and which he shared with Othniel, Gideon, and Jephthah, assumed 
in him the unique form of vast personal strength, animated by un- 
daunted braverv. It was inseparablv connected with the observance 
of his vow as a IXazarite; "his strength was in his hair." Conscious 
of this power he began to seek a quarrel with the Philistines ; and 
with this view he asked the hand of a beautiful Philistine woman 
whom he had seen at Timnath. One day as he passed by the vine- 
yards of the city on a visit to his intended bride, a young lion rushed 
out upon him : the spirit of Jehovah came on Samson, and, without a 
weapon, he seized the lion and tore it with* as much ease as if it had 
been a kid, but he told no one of the exploit. As he passed that way 
again, he saw a swarm of bees in the carcass of the lion. He took 
some of the honey in his hands, and went on eating it. 

At his wedding at Timnath, he was assigned thirty young men, 
relatives of his bride, as attendants, or groomsmen, and on the first 
day of the feast which he gave in honor of his marriage, and which 
lasted seven days, he proposed a riddle to his groomsmen to be solved 
in seven days, for a stake of thirty tunics and thirty changes of rai- 
ment. This was the riddle : 

" Out of the eater came forth food, 
And out of the strong came forth sweetness." 

Being unable to solve the riddle themselves, the young men urged 
Samson's wife to draw the secret from her husband and reveal it to 
them. She, after much trouble and entreaty, succeeded in inducing 
Samson to trust her with his secret, and immediately told it to the 
young men, who said to Samson at the end of the seven days : 

" What is sweeter than honey ? 
And what is stronger than a lion ?" 

Samson was satisfied that his wife had betrayed his secret, as he 
had confided it to no one else, and therefore to let them know that he 
was sensible of foul play in the matter, he replied indignantly, " If 
you had not plowed with my heifer, you could not have expounded 
my riddle." 

Pie at once repaired to Ashkelon, a city of the Philistines, and slew 
thirty men, whose raiment he sent to the young men who had won 



JUDGES — ELI, SAMSON, AND SAMUEL. 251 

the wager. Being angry with his Philistine connexions, he left Tim- 
nath and returned to his father's house. He still retained an affec- 
tion for his wife, however, in spite of her betrayal of his confidence. 

Some time after this, he went back to Timnath to see her, taking a 
kid with him as a present, but her father refused to allow him to see 
her, urging as his excuse that he thought he had slighted her, and 
had therefore given her in marriage to one of Samson's groomsmen. 
But he added, her younger sister, who was more beautiful, was at his 
service. 

Samson was greatly exasperated by such treatment, and resolved 
upon revenge. Taking three hundred foxes or jackals, he tied them 
together two by two by the tails, with a fire-brand between every pair 
of tails, and drove them into the standing corn of the Philistines, 
which was ready for the harvest, and in this way burned not only 
the corn but the vineyards and olive trees. In return for this, the 
Philistines burned Samson's wife and her father to death. Samson 
promptly took vengeance upon them, and falling upon them with 
fury, smote them " hip and thigh with a great slaughter," after which 
he took refuge on the top of the rock of Etam in the territory of 
Judah. 

When the Philistines heard of his place of refuge, they marched a 
strong army into the territory of Judah, and demanded the surrender 
of Samson that they might wreak their vengeance upon him. The 
men of Judah, dreading the consequences of this invasion, immedi- 
ately detached three thousand men of their tribe, with orders to seize 
Samson and deliver him to his enemies, and to inform him that they 
were subject to the Philistines and to reproach him for having sought 
shelter amongst them. Samson, though conscious of his strength, 
was not willing to use it against his own countrymen. So binding 
the men of Judah by an oath not to side with the Philistines against 
him, he surrendered himself to them, and they secured him with two 
strong cords, and brought him to the Philistine camp. 

As the Philistines saw him approach, bound, they burst into shouts 
of joy, and came out to take him ; but before they could lay hands on 
him the Spirit of God came upon him, and he burst his bonds as 
easily as if they had been thin paper. There was no weapon at hand, 
but the jaw bone of an ass, which lay bleaching upon the ground ; 
but seizing this, he threw himself with fury upon the Philistines, and 
put them to flight, slaying a thousand of their warriors. His great 
exertion in this exploit filled him with an intense thirst, and he prayed 
to God to give him water. God heard his prayer, and caused a spring 



252 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



to burst out from a rock which had never before produced any mois- 
ture. This great victory raised Samson to the position of a judge, 
which he held for twenty years. 

His strong animal nature at length caused him to yield to tempta- 
tion, but so long as he kept his Xazarite's vow his enemies were una- 
ble to ensnare him. Upon one occasion, while visiting a harlot in 
Guza, the Philistines shut the gates of the city, intending to kill him 
in the morning ; but at midnight he went out, and tore away the gates 
with the posts and bar, and carried them to the top of a hill looking 
toward Hebron. 

Some time afterward, he fell 
in love with a beautiful Philis- 
tine woman, named Delilah, 
who lived in the valley of 
Sorek, and he was so infatuated 
with her that he became re- 
gardless of his own safety. The 
princes of the Philistines, ob- 
serving this, bribed Delilah to 
discover the secret of her lov- 
er's strength, and betray it to 
them. The woman plied Sam- 
son with her artifices, and 
finally drew from him • the 
revelation that he had been a 
Xazarite to God from his birth, 
and that no razor had ever come 
upon his head, but that if he 
should be shaven, his strength 
would be no more than that of 
a common man. 

Delilah at once revealed the 
secret to the Philistine prince.-, 
who paid her her reward for her treachery, and having lulled Samson 
to sleep with his head in her lap, she had his hair shaved off by a 
man whom she had provided for that purpose. Then she roused him 
with the cry that the Philistines were upon him ; and he, being now 
no stronger than an ordinary man, was easily overcome and made a 
prisoner. *His enemies at once put out his eyes, bound him in brazen 
fetters, and confined him at hard labor in the prison at Gaza. 

God had not deserted his champion, though he had so severely 




DAGOX. 



JUDGES — ELI, SAMSON, AND SAMUEL. 253 

rebuked his confidence in his own strength, and' punished the viola- 
tion of his vows. It is very instructive that the last triumph, the price 

of which was his own life, was not granted to his cries of 
b. c. 1111 . . 

penitence till he was again restored to the state of a Naza- 

rite. As his hair grew, his strength returned ; but his infatuated foes 

only saw in this the means of their diversion. The lords and chiefs 

of the Philistines held a great feast in the Temple of Dagon, their 

God, and during the revels brought in Samson to make sport for them. 

After he had amused them with exhibitions of his great strength, 
they placed him between the two chief pillars which supported the 
roof that surrounded the court, which, as well as the court itself, was 
crowded with spectators to the number of 3000. Samson asked the 
lad who guided him to let him feel the pillars, to lean upon them. 
Then, with a fervent prayer that God would strengthen him only this 
once to be avenged on the Philistines, he J^ore with all his might upon 
the two pillars : they yielded, and the house fell upon the lords and 
all the people. " So the dead which he slew at his death were more 
than they which he slew in his life." His kinsmen took up his body, 
and buried him in his father's burying-place between Zorah and Esh- 
taol. His name is enrolled among the worthies of the Jewish Church 
who " through faith obtained a good report, stopped the mouths of 
lions, out of weakness were made strong, turned to flight the armies 
of the aliens." 

The loss of Samson was more than supplied by the other 
11 51. 1131 l ea der of whom we have spoken, as nearly of the same age, 
Samuel, the fifteenth and last of the judges ; the first in 
that regular succession of prophets, which never ceased till after the 
return from the Babylonian Captivity, and the founder of the monarchy. 
His name is expressive of the leading feature of his whole history, the 
power of prayer. Himself the child of prayer, he gained all his tri- 
umphs by prayer ; he is placed at the head of those " who called upon 
Jehovah, and he answered them ;" and he is placed on a level with 
Moses as an intercessor. Nor should we overlook in him one striking 
character of sincere prayer — the patient waiting to hear, and the 
readiness to obey the voice of God: " Speak, Lord, for thy servant 
heareth." 

His descent is uncertain. His father is called an Ephrathite, or, 
according to another reading, an Ephraimitc; but it seems certain, 
from the evidence of the genealogies, that he was a descendant of 
Korah the Levite, of the family of the Kohathites. The two state- 
ments are easily reconciled by assuming that his family were settled 



254 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

in Mount Ephraim. The place of their abode was Ramathaim-zophim 
(the double heights of the beacon or watch), elsewhere called Ramah, 
and identified by tradition with the lofty hill of Neby Samwll (the 
Prophet Samuel), 4 miles northwest of Jerusalem. It is now crowned 
by a mosque (itself the successor of a Christian church), where Sam- 
uel's sepulchre is still reverenced alike by Jews, Moslems, and Chris- 
tians. If this be its true site, it lay within the tribe of Benjamin, and 
sufficiently near to Beth-horon to agree with the statement that Beth- 
horon and its suburbs were allotted to the Kohathites. But the site 
is very uncertain. It was Samuel's usual residence to the end of his 
life. 

His father, Elkanah, had two wives, an instance of polygamy rare 
in a private family, and entailing the usual consequences of bitterness 
and jealousy. The one wife, Peninnah, had borne several children, 
but the other, Hannah, was barren. With a pious regularity which 
deserves especial notice in those times of disorder, the whole family 
went up yearly to worship and sacrifice to Jehovah at Shiloh, where 
Eli ministered as high-priest, assisted by his sous Hophni and Phine- 
has, as priests. As they feasted on their freewill-offering, according 
to the law, Elkanah gave Peninnah and her children their due por- 
tions, but to Hannah he gave a double portion. This proof of his 
affection brought on her the jealous provocations of her rival ; so that 
she wept, and could not eat, and her husband tried in vain to console 
her, asking, " Am not I better to thee than ten sons ?" In her bitter- 
ness of soul, she went and stood before the entrance of the tabernacle, 
where Eli sat in his usual place by one of the pillars, and with many 
tears she prayed for a son, whom she devoted to Jehovah as a Xazar- 
ite. She prayed silently, in her heart, but her lips moved, and Eli, 
thinking that she was drunk after the feast, reproved her severely; 
but on her assurance that she was a woman of sorrowful spirit, and 
poured forth her soul before Jehovah, he gave her his blessing, pray- 
ing that God would grant her petition. She departed with joy, and 
returned to Ramah ; and in due time she bore a son, and called him 
Samuel. She waited to go up again to Shiloh till the child was 
weaned, when she presented him before Jehovah, to abide there for- 
ever. Her husband, who cordially entered into her pious designs, 
provided a freewill-offering of three bullocks, an ephah of flour, and a 
skin of wine; and Hannah presented her son to Eli for the service of 
Jehovah, telling him of the fulfilment of the prayer he had witnessed. 
She uttered a hymn of praise, which served long after as a model for 
the "Song of the Blessed Virgin." Elkanah returned with his family 




255 



256 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

• 
to Raman, leaving behind Samuel, who abode in the tabernacle and 

ministered before Jehovah, clad in a linen ephod, like those worn by 

the priests. At their annual visit, Hannah brought Samuel a little 

coat, or mantle, a miniature of the official priestly robe. Eli blessed 

Elkanah and Hannah, who bore three sons and two daughters. 

Samuel's growth in favor with God and man formed a striking con- 
trast to the shameful profanation of the tabernacle by the sons of Eli, 
who were " sons of Belial." Instead of contenting themselves with 
the parts of the sacrifices allotted to them by the law, they invented 
strange and disorderly methods for obtaining what they pleased ; and 
they practised licentiousness at the very doors of the tabernacle. 
Their aged father reproved them in vain, and he was too indulgent to 
use his authority as high-priest : " His sons made themselves vile, and 
he restrained them not." Therefore a prophet was sent to denounce 
the destruction of the house of Eli, as a sign of which both his sons 
should be slain in one day ; a faithful priest should be raised up in his 
place ; and those who remained of Eli's house should come crouching 
to him with the prayer to be put into one of the priest's offices to earn 
a morsel of bread. The judgment was fulfilled when Solomon deposed 
Abiathar, the last high-priest of the house of Ithamar, and restored the 
priesthood to the house of Eleazar in the person of Zadok. 

Another warning was sent to Eli by the mouth of the youthful 
Samuel. "The word of God was precious in those days; there was 
no open vision;" and this made the revelation to Samuel a more 
decided proof of his call to the office of a prophet. Eli's sight was 
now failing, through old age, and he had laid himself down to sleep 
in a chamber attached to the tabernacle. Samuel had also lain down 
in the Holy Place itself, and the sacred lamp lighted at the time of 
the evening sacrifice was near expiring, when Jehovah called Samuel 
by name, and he answered, " Here am I." He knew not as yet that 
" still, small voice," and he ran to Eli, thinking that he had called 
him. This was repeated thrice ; but the third time Eli knew that 
Jehovah had spoken to the child, and he bade him reply to the next 
call by saying, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." Then the 
word of God came to Samuel, confirming, in more terrible terms, the 
sentence already uttered on the house of Eli, and declaring that the 
iniquity of his house should not be purged with sacrifice forever. 
In the morning Samuel opened the doors of the tabernacle as usual ; 
and, being solemnly adjured by Eli, he told him all that Jehovah 
had said ; and the old man exclaimed, like Job, " It is Jehovah ! let 
Him do what seemeth him good !" From that day Samuel was a 



JUDGES — ELI, SAMSON AND SAMUEL. 257 



prophet of Jehovah. His fame grew with his growth, and none of 
his words failed. Whatever difficulty we have felt before as to the 
extent of the influence of the judges disappears entirely now : "All 
Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established 
to be a prophet of Jehovah," and the words uttered by him at Shiloh 
came to pass throughout all Israel. 

Encouraged, it would seem, by this reappearance of the prophetic 
gift, and, at the same time, by the blow inflicted on the Philistines in 
Samson's dying effort, the Israelites went out to battle against their 
oppressors. The Israelites encamped at the place which afterward 
became so memorable by the name of Eben-ezer, and the Philistines 
at Aphek (the fastness), places in the highlands of Benjamin not far 
to the north of Jerusalem. In the first of the three great battles 
which signalized this neighborhood the Israelites were defeated, with 
the loss of 4000 men. The elders of 
Israel then formed the rash project 
of fetching the ark of the covenant 
into the camp, that it might save them 
from their enemies. Thus all their 
memory of God's mighty deeds of old 
was summed up in a superstitious 
hope v from the mere symbol of his 
presence, which they profaned even 
while they trusted to its help. The 
ark was brought from Shiloh by 
Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of 
Eli, fit ministers of such a sacrilegious 
act. The shout with which the ark 

was welcomed appalled the Philistines, who thought the gods of the 
Hebrews had come into the camp, those mighty gods " that smote the 
Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness." But, instead of 
panic fear, they assumed the courage of despair, while the God they 
so much feared was only present in the Hebrew camp to punish the 
presumption of the rulers and the wickedness of the priests. Israel 
was smitten with a panic rout ; 30,000 men were slain, and among 
them Hophni and Phinehas, and the ark of God was taken. The 
news was carried to Shiloh by a Benjamite, who escaped from the 
battle, and arrived with his clothes torn and earth upon his head, in 
sign of the deepest mourning. As Eli sat by the side of the road, 
at the gates of the tabernacle, waiting for tidings and trembling for 
the ark of God, he heard the cry of grief and terror raised by the 
17 




SAMUEL AND ELI. 



258 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

whole city. The messenger was brought to Eli, who listened to the 
fate of the army and his own sons ; but when he heard that the ark 
of God was taken, he fell back from his seat and broke his neck and 
died, for he was an old man and heavy. He was ninety-eight years 
old, and had judged Israel forty years. But the troubles of the day 
were not yet ended. The wife of Phinehas, on hearing the news, was 
seized with premature labor, and died in giving birth to a son, whom 
she named with her last breath I-cha-bod (ichere is the glory), for 
she said, " The glory is departed from Israel, " because the ark of 
God was taken. That one phrase is the best description of the fear- 
ful issue of the second battle of Eben-ezer. 

The captured ark was carried by the Philistines to 

B C. 1111 . 

Ashdod (the later Azotus), to be laid up as a trophy in 
the temple of their national deity Dagon, whom the next morning 
they found fallen down upon his face before the ark of the Lord. 
They set him again in his place, and the next day came in again, 
and not only found him fallen to the ground, but his head and the 
palms of his hands broken off and lying on the threshold, the only 
portion of the idol remaining whole being the lower part. The 
memory of this humiliation was perpetuated at Ashdod by the custom 
of the priests not to tread on the threshold of his temple. Next the 
men of Ashdod were smitten, many with death, and others by a>com- 
plaint shameful as well as painful, and, as we afterward find, their 
land was ravaged by swarms of mice. They refused to keep the ark 
any longer, and, by the decision of the lords of the Philistines, it was 
carried first to Gath and then to Ekron, only to inflict the like 
plagues and slaughter on those cities. 

For seven months the ark was thus carried about through the 
cities of the Philistines; and at length they resolved to send it back. 
Under the advice of their priests and diviners, whom it is most 
interesting to find remonstrating with them for hardening their hearts 
as the Egyptians and Pharaoh had done, they sent with it five golden 
images of mice, and five such of the emerods, as a trespass-offering. 
They made a new cart, on which they placed the ark, with a coffer 
containing the jewels of gold ; and to prove the hand of God in its 
return, they harnessed to the cart two milch-cows that had never 
borne the yoke, and took home their calves. The cows went straight 
up the road leading from Ekron to Beth-shemesh (House of the Sun, 
now Ain-Shems), lowing after their calves, but never turning aside; 
the five lords of the Philistines following after, to see the result. As 
the cart reached the field of Joshua, the Bethshemite, the men of 



260 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Beth-shemesh paused from their harvest-work, rejoicing at the sight ; 
the Levites took down the ark and coffer, cut up the cart, and used 
the wood in sacrificing the cows as a burnt-offering. Overcome, 
however, by curiosity, the men of Beth-shemesh looked into the ark, 
and Jehovah smote 50,070 of them with death. In their terror they 
sent to the men of Kirjath-jearim to fetch away the ark, and in that 
city it remained till David removed it to Jerusalem. Its abode was 
in the house of Abinadab, a Levite, on the summit of the hill ; and 
his son Eleazar was consecrated as the keeper of the ark. 

For twenty years the people mourned for the absence of the ark 
from Shiloh, and beneath the oppression of the Philistines, till Samuel 
summoned them to repentance and exertion. He bade them to put 
away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and all false gods, and prepare their 
hearts to serve Jehovah, and he would deliver them from the ffand 
of the Philistines. He gathered all Israel at Mizpeh, that he might 
pray for them to Jehovah. There they held a solemn fast-day, con- 
fessing their sins, and pouring out libations of water, which seem to 
represent a " baptism of repentance," as well as a renewal of the 
covenant; after which Samuel judged the people, their repentance 
being thus connected with the redress of wrongs. This assembly was 
the signal for a new muster of the Philistines, and the frightened 
Israelites entreated Samuel not to cease to cry to God on their behalf. 
He was in the very act of offering a burnt-offering and uttering his 
cries of prayer, when the Philistines drew near in battle array. Then 
God answered the prayers of Samuel by a violent storm of thunder, 
which discomfited the Philistines, and Israel pursued them with 
great slaughter to Bethcar (the house of lambs). This spot, at which 
the pursuit ceased, seems to have been the place where Samuel set up 
a stone, as a memorial of the victory, between Mizpeh and Shen, and 
called it Eben-ezer (the stone of help), saying, " Hitherto hath 
Jehovah helped us !" 

This third battle of Eben-ezer put an end to the forty years' 
oppression of the Philistines, who "were subdued, and came no more 
into the coast of Israel, and the hand of Jehovah was against the 
Philistines all the days of Samuel." The prophet was now, if not 
before, constituted the judge of Israel, the last who held that office 
before the monarchy; for though he is said to have made his sons 
Joel (or Vashni) and Abiah judges, they must be regarded simply as 
his deputies, like the sons of Jair and of Abdon. Their seat of judg- 
ment was at Beersheba; while Samuel himself dwelt at Ramah, and 
made a circuit of the neighboring cities, judging the people of Bethel, 



JUDGES — ELI, SAMSON, AND SAMUEL. 261 

Gilgal, and Mizpeh, all four places being in the highlands of Ben- 
jamin. We have incidental pictures of this part of Samuel's life in 
the early history of Saul and David. We see the prophet receiving 
those who desired to inquire of Jehovah, and who came to him with 
a customary present, presiding at the sacrifices of his own city, and 
entertaining a select number of the most distinguished elders at the 
ensuing banquet, or going to hold a special sacrifice, as at Bethlehem, 
where the awe inspired by his presence bears witness to the authority 
of the judge. At this time, too, we first hear of those " Companies 
(or as our version gives, Schools) of the Prophets" where the young 
men on whom the Spirit of God had descended were trained, under 
Samuel's eye, in the art of sacred song, and doubtless in the know- 
ledge of the Scriptures ; in which David improved his powers as the 
great Psalmist, and of which we learn more under Elijah and Elisha. 
How long this state of things lasted we are not informed : it was 
brought to an end by the misconduct of Samuel's sons in his old age. 



262 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



BOOK V. 

the single monarchy, 
[b. c. 1095—975.] 




CHAPTER XVII. 

THE REIGN OF SAUL, AND EARLY HISTORY OP DAVID. 

[b. c. 1095-1056.] 

IF HE Philistine yoke was broken, and the attacks of enemies on 
the other frontiers had ceased. Peace was restored to Israel 
under the wisest and holiest ruler they had had since Joshua, 
and it might have seemed that the theocracy was safely re- 
established. And yet it is not surprising that the people 
should have thought less of their present security than of their past 
dangers, and that the season of tranquillity was used as an opportunity 

for obtaining what they deemed a stronger and more per- 
b. c. 1095. . 

manent government. The offer of the crown to Gideon 

proves that this desire had long been growing, from envy of the splen- 
dor and power of the surrounding monarchies, and from a bitter sense 
of the disorders of those times when "there was no king in Israel, and 
every man did what was right in his own eyes." And, just as 
we often see the effect of some inveterate evil reach its climax at the 
very moment when the cause itself seems to have been subdued, so 
the settlement of the government by Samuel failed to avert the revo- 
lution for which the misconduct of his sons gave the immediate occa- 
sion. The elders of Israel came to him at his house at Raman, and 
pleading Ins own great age, and the evils growing up again, their 
sense of which would be the keener from the remembrance of Hophni 
and Phinehas, they plainly made the request, " Make us a king, to 
judge us, like all the nations." 

Their idea of a king may be summed up in the three points of a 
leader always ready at their head in war, a judge provided without 
interruption by the law of hereditary descent, and a court invested 
with dignity and magnificence. Their reference to the prophet proves 
that they wished to have the divine sanction to their desire. 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 263 

It was a trying moment for Samuel, as a man, a father, and a pro- 
phet of Jehovah : " The thing was evil in the eyes of Samuel." At 
his age, and with his spirit, we cannot suppose him to have been much 
concerned at the loss of his own power. The slight to his government 
was excused by the misconduct of his sons ; and keenly as we see that 
he felt the implied rebellion against Jehovah, the case was beyond the 
reach of mere reproof, and the people would not have been contented 
with the simple reply of Gideon, " Jehovah shall rule over you." 
Samuel applied himself to the resource that never failed him, he prayed 
unto Jehovah. His indignation was at once justified and chastened 
by the assurance, " They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected 
me from reigning over them." 

These words are the key to the whole history of the Hebrew mon- 
archy ; but they must not be viewed .as entirely words of anger. God 
pitied the infirmities of his people, even while he punished their self- 
will by granting their desire. So Samuel is instructed to grant them 
their request, but not till he had first solemnly warned them of its im- 
mediate results, in the oppression which their king would exercise till 
they should cry out to Jehovah against the master of their own choice. 
The prophet's description of a self-willed king should be compared 
with the law laid down by Moses, in anticipation of the kingdom. 
The expostulation had no effect.; and after once more laying before 
Jehovah their reply, " We will have a king over us," and again re- 
ceiving the command to make them a king, Samuel sent them back to 
their cities, to await the man selected for them in the providence of 
God. We must not suppose that that man would be a ferocious tyrant, 
at once beginning to inflict the retribution of their folly. 

Saul was the son of Kish, a wealthy and powerful Benjamite, and 
is described as " a choice young man, and a goodly ; there was not 
among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he ; from his 
shoulders and upward, he was taller than any of the people." To this 
physical excellence he added many defects of character, as will be seen 
in the course of the narrative. His birthplace is uncertain. Zelah 
was the place of his father's sepulchre, but his royal residence was at 
Gibeah, thence called " Gibeah of Saul ;" and this town seems to have 
been the abode of at least a part of the family. His age at the time 
of his election is not stated ; but we can hardly suppose so great a dig- 
nity, involving the chief command in war and the judgeship, to have 
been conferred on a man under forty; and this agrees with what we 
know of the ages of his sons. Jonathan, his eldest son, appears as a 
warrior the year after Saul's accession, and I&h-bosheth. his vouuger 
son, was forty years old at his father's death. 



264 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



Saul was led to Samuel to be anointed to his future office in the 
following manner. He was sent by Kish his father, in company with 
a servant to search for some asses which had strayed away. They 
passed through Mount Ephraini, and by Shalisha and Shalim, till 
they came on the third day to the neighborhood of Samuel's abode, 
here called the land of Zuph. Saul now proposed to return, lest his 
father's care for the asses should pass into anxiety for him and the 
servant — a mark of his affectionate disposition. The servant, however, 
told him that in the city which they were approaching there dwelt a 
man of God who was held in the highest honor, and all whose words 
came to pass ; perhaps he might direct them where to find the asses. 
Saul's difficulty about the present which it was usual to offer when 

consulting a seer (for such was the 
name of a prophet in those days) 
was removed by the servant, who 
had with him the fourth part of a 
shekel of silver. As they ascended 
the hill on which the city stood, 
they learned from the maidens who 
had come out to draw water that 
the seer had just returned from 
one of his judicial circuits, and 
was expected to bless the sacrifice 
and festival which the people were 
holding on that day in the high 
place above the city ; and, just as 
they entered the city, they met 
Samuel coming forth for that pur- 
pose. Samuel was prepared for the interview. God had forwarned 
him the day before that he would send to him on the morrow a Ben- 
jamite, whom he should anoint to be captain over Israel, to deliver 
them out of the hand of the Philistines ; and now, as Saul approached, 
the word of Jehovah came to Samuel : " Behold the man whom I 
spake to thee of! this same shall reign over my people." Samuel 
made himself known to Saul, and having told him that his father's 
asses were found, he astonished him by the salutation, "On whom is 
all the desire of Israel? Is it not on thee, and on all thy father's 
house?" Waiting as the people were for their destined king, Saul 
could not but suppose what Samuel meant; and he pleaded that his 
family was the least in Benjamin, itself the smallest tribe in Israel. 
Postponing further explanation, Samuel led Saul and his servant into 




SAMUEL AXOIXTLXG SAUL. 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 265 

the banqueting-chamber on the high place, and seated them above all 
the thirty guests who were assembled, persons whose limited number 
proves their consequence in the city. Samuel then ordered the cook 
to place before Saul the portion which he had told him to reserve for 
an expected guest, namely, a boiled shoulder, at once the choicest part 
of the sacrifice, and the emblem of the weight of government which he 
was to sustain. After the banquet they went down from the high 
place to the city, and Samuel lodged Saul on the top of his house, a 
favorite sleeping-place in the East. 

At daybreak the prophet aroused his guest and led him 
out of the city ; and then, the servant having been sent on 
before them, Samuel bade Saul stand still to hear the word of Jehovah. 
Thereupon, producing a vial of oil, he poured it on his head, adding 
the kiss of homage, and telling him that Jehovah had anointed him to 
be captain over his inheritance. The prophet named three incidents 
which would happen to Saul on his return, as signs that Jehovah was 
with him ; the first, an assurance of the safety of his father's cattle, as 
the prophet had said ; the second, a present which was to be an earnest 
of the future offerings of the people; the third, the descent of the spirit 
of Jehovah upon him, causing him to prophesy, and turning him into 
another man. The promised change began at the moment that Saul 
turned to leave Samuel : he felt that God had given him another heart, 
and the appointed signs were fulfilled in their order. The only re- 
maining care of his past life was relieved by two men who met him by 
Rachel's sepulchre at Zelzah, and told him that the asses were found, 
and that his father was anxious about him. At the oak of Tabor, he 
met three men who presented to him two loaves of bread out of the 
offerings which they were carrying up to God at Bethel. And, in 
fine, when he reached " the hill of God n (probably Gibeah), which 
was occupied by a garrison of the Philistines, a company of prophets 
eame down from the high place with the instruments of music which 
they were taught to use in the service of God ; and, as they began to 
prophesy, the spirit of God fell upon Saul, and he prophesied among 
them. This sign of his inspiration was the more decisive, as he seems- 
to have been a man unlikely to exhibit religious fervor. Those who 
had known him before expressed their amazement by the question y 
which passed into a proverb, " Is Saul also among the prophets ?" and 
there were some who went so far as to question the source of such in- 
spiration by suggesting, "But who is their father*?" Saul then went 
up to the high place, apparently the hill of Gibeah, to the residence 
of his uncle (or his grandfather), Ner, in reply to whose curious in- 



266 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

quiries he told what Samuel had said about the asses, but said nothing 
about the matter of the kingdom. After this private designation to 
his office, he returned to his home. 

The time soon came for his public manifestation to Israel. Samuel 
convened the people at Mizpeh ; and, after again reproving them for 
rejecting the rule of Jehovah for that of an earthly king, commanded 
them to cast lots before Jehovah, in order to determine which of the 
tribes the king should be chosen from. The lot fell upon Benjamin, 
and upon another cast, the family of Matri was chosen, and from these 
was drawn the name of Saul, the son of Kish. But Saul was so lit- 
tle anxious for the dignity that he hid himself in the baggage, and 
was found there only after the oracle had revealed his place of con- 
cealment. Being brought into the midst of the assembly, his tall fig- 
ure towered above his fellows, and his noble bearing won him uni- 
versal favor. Samuel pointed him out to the people, exclaiming: 
" Behold him whom the Lord hath chosen ; there is none like him 
among all the people/' and the vast multitude broke into shouts of 
" God save the king." 

Samuel then rehearsed to the people the law for the government of 
Israel, to which even the king must be subject, and wrote it in a book, 
and laid it up before Jehovah in the sanctuary. Then he sent the 
people back to their homes. Saul at the same time returned to his 
home iu Gibeah, attended only by a band of followers whose hearts 
God had inclined to him. But there were some that were not pleased 
with the choice, though they desired a king, and neglected to bring 
him presents. Saul observed this, but held his peace, resolved to 
prove himself by his deeds worthy of his crown. 

That opportunity soon arrived. We have seen how the Philistines 
overran Israel during the last years of Samuel. We have seen the 
Philistines masters of the citadel of Gibeah, and now we meet again 
the enemy whom Jephthah subdued. The city of Jabesh-gilead was 
besieged by Nahash the Ammonite, who was so sure of taking it, that 
he refused to accept its surrender except on the shameful condition of 
putting out the right eyes of all the people, and laying it as a disgrace 
on Israel. The men of Jabesh in this extremity obtained a truce of 
seven days to consider the terms offered them, and at once sent to 
Saul at Gibeah for help. Saul promptly responded to their appeal, 
and called out the forces of Israel, denouncing severe penalties against 
any one who should refuse to obey the call. He assembled his army 
in Bezek, and found himself at the head of 300,000 warriors of Israel, 
and 30,000 of Judah. With this force he marched rapidly upon 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 267 

Jabesh, and on the sixth day of the truce surprised the camp of the 
Ammonites in a night attack, and routed them with terrible slaughter. 
He pursued them until the heat of the day put an end to the pursuit. 
His triumph was adorned by an act of regal clemency. The people 
called on Samuel to put to death the men who had despised the new- 
made king; but Saul declared that not a man should be put to death 
on that day, in which Jehovah had saved Israel. 

This signal success put an end to the opposition to Saul, and he 
was again solemnly inaugurated into his kingdom, at a solemn assem- 
bly of the tribes at Gilgal. Samuel took this occasion to lay down 
his judicial functions. In a touching address to the people, he ap- 
pealed to them all as to the integrity of his conduct during his judge- 
ship ; then charged them with the ingratitude with which they and 
their ancestors had received God's blessings ; and lastly assured them 
of the certainty of punishment for all transgressions of the laws of 
Jehovah, and assured them that they had sinned very grievously in 
rejecting Jehovah and desiring an earthly king, when he had led them 
with such a mighty arm. Now, however, they had been given a king, 
and it rested with them whether his kingdom should be established. 
If they would serve Jehovah and keep his law, both king and people 
should continue to be his; but if they were rebellious, his hand would 
be against them, as it had been against their fathers. Then pointing 
to the sky, which had been brilliant with the unchanging clearness of 
an eastern June (for it was the season of the wheat harvest), he prayed 
to God, who sent the portent of a thunderstorm to confirm his words. 

This event, so extraordinary at that season, terrified the people, and 
they confessed their latest sin, and implored Samuel to pray to God 
for them to avert the just penalty of their sins. The prophet com- 
forted them with the promise of the future, warning them not to let 
the sense of past guilt lead them into further sin, and protested that 
he wpuld never cease to pray for them, and teach them the good and 
right way. 

We read that Samuel "judged Israel all the days of his life." In 
his subsequent relations to Saul, there is clearly more than the sort 
of authority which the later prophets never ceased to exercise as spe- 
cial messengers of Jehovah to reprove the sins of the king and direct 
him on great occasions. Samuel's is a power constantly present to 
check the waywardness of Saul, and at last reversing his election and 
designating his successor. 

The preceding events occupied the first year of Saul's 
reign. In the second, he set to work systematically to 



268 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

deliver Israel from their enemies. He gathered a chosen band of 
3000 men, two-thirds being with him in the camp at Michmash and 
the hills of Bethel, and the other 1000 at Gibeah, with his son 
Jonathan, whose name now first appears in the history. Jona- 
than's successful attack on the Philistine garrison in the hill of Geba 
opposite Michmash was the signal for Saul's summoning the Israelites 
to the war. His trumpet sounded through all the land, and his 
camp was fixed at Gilgal, the scene of his inauguration, and the old 
camp of Joshua. The Philistines answered the challenge with an 
immense army, comprising 30,000 chariots and 6000 horsemen, be- 
sides infantry without number, and encamped at Michmash, on the 
highlands which Saul had abandoned. The Israelites fled to woods 
and caves and the fastnesses of the rocks, while even the warriors 
trembled as they followed Saul. The king waited impatiently at 
Gilgal for the seven days within which Samuel had promised to come 
and offer sacrifice, while his forces were rapidly dispersing. On the 
seventh day he ventured to begin the sacrifices himself; and he had 
just ended the burnt-offering, when Samuel arrived, and asked him 
what he had done. Saul pleaded the danger of the Philistines 
coming down the pass to attack him at Gilgal ; but Samuel declared 
that he had acted with sinful folly, and uttered the first intimation 
thus early in his reign of what he had already threatened in case of 
disobedience, that his kingdom should not be lasting, for Jehovah 
had already sought out " a man after his own heart, to be captain 
over his people." After this threat, which seems to have been 
uttered privately to Saul, Samuel went away to Gibeah, and Saul 
followed with his little band of only 600 men and encamped on the 
south side of the ravine, on the north of which lay the Philistines. 
He was joined at Gibeah by the high-priest Abiah, the son of Ahitub, 
son of Phinehas, son of Eli, and it would seem that the ark was 
brought up for the time from its house at Ivirjath-jearim. Mean- 
while the Philistines overran the country from their head-quarters at 
Michmash, whence three bands of spoilers issued forth. Xo smith 
was suffered to work in Israel, but the people went to the camps of 
the Philistines to sharpen their tools; Saul and Jonathan alone had 
swords and spears. 

An unhoped-for deliverance was effected by God's blessing on the 
courage of Jonathan. "Without consulting his father or any of the 
heads of Israel, he planned a surprise of the enemy's camp, trusting 
in Jehovah, "with whom," said he, "there is no restraint to save by 
many or by few." Accompanied by his intrepid armor-bearer, he 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 269 

climbed up the opposite side of the ravine between two sharp crags, 
named Bozez and Seneh. They resolved to show themselves boldly 
to the Philistines, and to draw an omen from the words with which 
they might be received, and when the enemy, mistaking them for 
refugees from the Hebrew camp, called to them to come up and they 
would show them something, Jonathan concluded that Jehovah had 
given the hostile army into the hands of Israel. Scrambling up the 
steep precipice which was supposed to make the camp impregnable, 
Jonathan and his companion fell upon the enemy, and put twenty of 
them to the sword. This bold act threw the Philistine camp into a 
panic, which was increased by an earthquake, and the Philistines in 
their mad terror fell to slaying each other with fatal fury. Jonathan 
was now joined by the Hebrews in the Philistine camp, and those 
who had sought refuge in the neighboring caves, and the slaughter 
went on. 

Saul was promptly informed by his scouts of the confusion in the 
Philistine camp, and, though unable to account for it, resolved to 
profit by it. He hurled his forces upon the disordered masses of the 
enemy, routed them, put them to flight, and pursued them with great 
vigor. Unfortunately he was guilty of another piece of impiety. 
Elated with the pursuit, he swore that the Israelite should be cursed 
who rested from the pursuit to taste food until nightfall. They were 
passing through one of those woods where the wild bees build their 
combs in the branches in such numbers that the honey drops from 
the trees, and no man dared even to carry his hand to his mouth for 
fear of Saul's oath, when Jonathan, who had now rejoined the army, 
dipped the end of his staff in a honey-comb and put it to his mouth. 
His sense of new life caused him to inveigh bitterly against his 
father's vow, of which he was now informed for the first time. 
When evening came, the famished people flew upon the spoil, and 
began to eat the cattle with the blood. Saul reproved their sin, and 
building an altar, the first that he built to Jehovah, he bade the 
people bring each his ox or sheep and slay it there. He then pre- 
pared to continue the pursuit by night; but the high-priest reminded 
him that all this time they had not asked counsel of God. Saul 
now inquired if he should pursue the Philistines, but the oracle was 
silent. He set himself to find the hidden sin, swearing by the life 
of Jehovah that the man should die, were it Jonathan his own 
son. As no one answered, he cast lots, with prayer to God, be- 
tween the people on one side, and himself and Jonathan on the 
other, and Saul and Jonathan were taken. A second lot fell on 



270 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




DAVID KEEPING HIS FATHERS FLOCKS. 



Jonathan, and Saul would have kept his oath, but the people 

interposed to save their champion's life. So Saul returned from 

the pursuit of the Philistines. 

1mn The " "War of Mich mash/' as the above campaign i s 
b. c. 1090. ? . l ° 

called, was followed by a series of victories over all the 
other enemies of Israel, Moab, Amnion, Edom, the kings of Zobah, 
the Philistines again, and the Amalekites, of whom more will presently 
be said. This is the brightest period of the life of Saul, who now 
assumed his full royal state: he " took the kingdom." His own 
family made a goodly show. Besides Jonathan, his court was graced 
by two sons, Ishui and Melchi-shua, and two daughters, Merab and 
Michal, the children of his wife Ahinoam, daughter of his father's 
sister Ahimaaz. His standing army of 3000 men was commanded 
by his uncle, Abxer, the son of Xer, one of the noblest men and 
greatest warriors in the history of Israel ; and he had a body-guard 
of Benjamites, chosen for their beauty and stature, as runners and 
messengers, of whom David afterward became the chief. These two 
commanders sat at the king's table with Jonathan, whose seat was 
opposite his father's. In recruiting these guards, the king acted in 
the arbitrary manner Samuel had predicted ; " when he saw any 
strong man, or any valiant man, he took him to himself." The herds 
of cattle, which formed the chief part of the royal wealth, and the 
servants who had the charge of them, were under a chief officer, cor- 
responding to the constable (comes stabuli) of the mediaeval monarchies, 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 271 

who had constant access to the king's presence. Saul gave this office 
to an Edomite, named Doeg, who became infamous as the slayer of 
the priests. Even the high-priest, as we have seen, attended the com- 
mands of the king, both in the camp and court, with the sacred ephod, 
as a means of consulting the divine will ; and Saul assumed the power 
of giving him orders at all times through his messengers ; so far had 
the theocracy sunk from that state in which the people used to stand 
before the tabernacle, to receive the sole behests of Jehovah their king 
through the prophet and the priest ! 

Whether sitting at table with these officers, whose attendance was 
especially required on the new moon and other festive days, or 
whether he appeared in public, surrounded by his body-guard, the 
king was distinguished by a tall spear, suited to his stature, which 
was placed beside his chair when he rested, and by his pillow when 
he slept, and which he wielded with terrible effect in battle, where the 
mightiest weapons of Israel were the spear of Saul and the bow of 
Jonathan. He wore over his arms a royal diadem and a golden arm- 
let. He loved to hear the acclamations of the people, and the songs 
with which the women greeted him as they came out of the cities of 
Israel, to welcome his return from battle and to receive robes of 
scarlet and ornaments of gold from the spoil. 

Such was Saul's outward state during the first of the three periods 
into which we may divide his reign. But beneath it all was the re- 
membrance of the doom pronounced by Samuel at Gilgal, and ren- 
dered irrevocable by Saul's conduct during the second stage of his 
career. He seems like one impelled by the intoxication of power to 
brave the very fear that haunted him, and an act of open disobedience 
to God determined his fate. 

Saul now received the command of Jehovah to execute upon 
Amalek the vengeance long ago denounced upon them for their 
treacherous attack on Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. He was com- 
manded to destroy Amalek utterly, man and woman, infant and suck- 
ling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. He entered upon the war at the 
head of 210,000 infantry, and having first warned the old allies of 
Moses, the Kenites, to depart from among the Amalekites, he struck 
the latter a terrible blow and destroyed all but Agag, their king, 
whom he took prisoner. His vanity led him to disobey Jehovah and 
spare not only Agag, but the best of the dumb animals and all that 
was valuable, that it might grace his triumph. Thus laden with 
spoil, he set out on his return to the old camp at Gilgal, by way of 
Garmcl, instead of continuing the pursuit of the remnant of Amalek 
that had fled towards Egypt. 



272 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

He was met at Gilgal by Samuel, who had been commanded by 
the Lord to confront him there. The prophet sternly reproved him for 
his disobedience, and Saul, to exculpate himself, pretended 
that he had preserved the spoil from the pious motive 
of offering it in sacrifice to Jehovah. But the prophet, assured that 
this reserve proceded from avarice rather than piety, would not ad- 
mit of so vain a pretence. He first laid before the king the heinous 
nature of his offence, and repeated God's awful judgment upon him, 
" Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, he hath also re- 
jected thee from being king." He informed Saul that God had re- 
solved to take the kingdom from his family and give it to another, 
and that he would not change his determination. 

Impressed by this declaration, the guilty king earnestly entreated 
Samuel to intercede with Jehovah for him that he might escape his 
vengeance ; and also to enhance his reputation among the people (who 
were ripe for rebellion) to join with him in the solemn worship of 
God. Samuel refused and reiterated the sentence. As he turned to 
depart, Saul caught at his prophet's mantle, but only to receive a new 
sign of his fate. The mantle was rent, and Samuel declared to him 
that even so had God rent the kingdom of Israel from Saul, and 
given it to a neighbor of his, who was better than himself. 

At length, however, Samuel was induced by Saul's earnest and 
contrite entreaties, to comply with his request; but before he departed 
he insisted that Agag (who had begun to entertain hopes of being 
spared) should be brought to him ; which was done. " As thy sword 
hath made women childless/' said the prophet to the captive king, 
" so shall thy mother be childless among women." And Samuel hewed 
Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. 

This was Samuel's last interview with Saul, for whom he still re- 
tained that affection which is a strong tribute to the better features of 
the king's character. While Saul went to his royal residence at 
Gibeah, Samuel returned to his house at Ramah, where he mourned 
for Saul with a prolonged bitterness, which at last incurred the reproof 
of God, who had new work for him to perform in the designation of 
Saul's successor. Meanwhile Jehovah's repentance at having made 
Saul king is emphatically repeated. 

Samuel was recalled from the indulgence of his grief by 

a command to fill a horn with the consecrated oil laid up 

in the tabernacle, and to go to Bethlehem, where God had chosen a 

kins; among the sons of Jesse, the grandson of Boaz and Ruth, and 

the heir of their wealth and distinction in the city. To remove his 




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ft 

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13 



273 



274 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

fear of Saul's anger, the prophet is directed to take with him a heifer, 
and to invite Jesse to a sacrifice. His arrival caused much alarm, but 
he assured the elders that he came in peace, and bade them and the 
house of Jesse to sanctify themselves for the sacrifice. There the fam- 
ily of Jesse made a goodly show. To his distinction as the chief man 
of the city, he added that of an age remarkable in those degenerate 
days, and he was surrounded by all his eight sons, except the young- 
est, who seems to have been of small consideration in the family, and 
accordingly was sent abroad to tend the sheep. Struck with the noble 
figure of the eldest son, Eliab, the very counterpart of Saul, Samuel 
said to himself, " Surely the anointed of Jehovah is before me :" but 
he was warned not to judge a second time by so false a standard. Je- 
hovah said to him, " Look not on his countenance or on the height of 
his stature, because I have refused him ; for it is not as man seeth ; for 
man looketh on the outward appearance, but Jehovah looketh on the 
heart." In like manner the prophet rejected Abinadab, the second, 
Shammah, the third, and all the rest of the seven. Samuel asked 
Jesse, " Are all thy children here ?" No ; there still remained the 
youngest, who was with the sheep. " Send and fetch him," said the 
prophet, " for we will not sit down till he come." Soon there entered 
a fair youth, with reddish or auburn hair, and keen bright eyes, his 
beautiful countenance flushed with his healthy occupation, and his 
whole aspect pleasant to behold. Then Jehovah said to Samuel, " Up 
and anoint him : for this is he !" In the presence of his brethren 
Samuel poured the horn of sacred oil upon his head, and then returned 
to his house at Ramah, having performed his last public act. From 
that day forth the spirit of Jehovah came on David (" the beloved "), 
for such was the name of Jesse's youngest son, the new " root" of the 
princely tribe of Judah, the first true King 01 Israel, and the greatest, 
since Abraham, of the progenitors of the Christ, who, as David's son, 
was "anointed" in his anointing. 

This is all that we are distinctly told of David's early life in Scrip- 
ture, the simple records of which must not be contaminated with the 
oriental legends, nor even illustrated, without the greatest caution, 
from the Jewish traditions which are recorded by Josephus. 

From the sources of information open to us we gather that David 
was a beautiful, though not a commanding person, strong and agile, 
and endowed with the exquisite organization of the poet and the mu- 
sician. Being the youngest of a large family, he was treated with 
scorn by his elder brethren, and compelled to assume the occupation 
of a shepherd, which is usually allotted in the East to servants, women, 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 



275 



and dependants. This life, however, contributed much, under God, 
to the formation of his character. The lonely watches which he kept 
by night, amid the pastures for which Bethlehem was famed, opened 
his mind to revelations only surpassed by those made to later shepherds 
in the same fields at the advent of his Son and Lord, and his Psalms 
show how he used the imagery spread out before his eyes by day and 
night. At this time he must have acquired the art which has rend- 
ered him immortal as " the sweet singer of Israel." But not only 
were his religious and artistic sympathies and perceptions heightened 
by this life ; his personal prowess was exercised as well. Single 
handed he slew a lion and a bear that ventured to attack his flocks, 
and he became famous in the defence of his father's possessions against 
the Bedouin robbers and Philistine marauders ; and at the time of his 
first introduction to Saul, we find him known already as " a mighty 
valiant man, and a man of war." At the same time he had already a 
reputation for the prudence which 
distinguished him in after life, and 
which was doubtless the fruit of the 
self-reliance demanded by his posi- 
tion in his father's house. It seems 
probable that he found congenial 
companions in his nephews, Abishai, 
Joab, and Asahel, the sons of Zeruiah, 
and Amasa the son of Abigail, who 
were probably about his own age, 
and who afterward became his most 
famous champions in war, though 
the cause- of many a trouble, from 
their want of sympathy with the 
gentler side of his character. 

To complete his qualifications for 
his future dignity, David was intro- 
duced to the court of Saul ; and, after being displayed to the nation 
as a rival of the king even in warlike fame, his character was braced 
by a long persecution. The difficulties which appear on the compari- 
son of the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of Samuel, as they stand 
in our text, may arise from the interweaving of different narratives 
in an order not strictly chronological. There is an evident reason for 
placing the departure of Jehovah's spirit from Saul in immediate con- 
trast with its descent on David ; but the natural order of the events 
after David's anointing will be found, we think, in the passage which 




THE SWEET PSALMIST. 



276 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

occurs as a retrospective episode in the story of Goliath. The narra- 
tive is commonly misunderstood by its not being seen that this vic- 
tory was the crowning incident of a long campaign. 

We are told that u there was sore war against the Philistines all 
the days of Saul f and the whole system of God's dealings with Israel 
justifies our supposing that Saul's crowning act of disobedience was 
followed by a fresh assault of these enemies. The Philistines gathered 
their armies at Ephes-dammim (the Bounds of Blood), between Shochoh 
and Azekak, on the border between their own great plain and the 
highlands of Judah. Saul and the men of Israel were gathered to 
oppose them ; and among those who followed him were the three 
eldest sons of Jesse — Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah. Xot on one 
occasion only, but habitually, as we judge from the nature of the case, 
Jesse sent David to inquire of his brothers' welfare and to supply 
their wants. "With his natural courage animated by the knowledge 
of his high destiny, we may be assured that David would not neglect 
the opportunity afforded by his visits to the camp to begin irregular 
essays in the art of war. The taunt of his brother Eliab that he had 
come down, in " the pride and naughtiness of his heart, to see the 
battle," seems to breathe jealousy rather than contempt. 

Meanwhile the mind of Saul was oppressed by this new war, and 
by the foresight of the fate denounced against him by Samuel. " The 
Spirit of Jehovah,' 7 which had descended upon him when he was 
anointed, now " departed from him, and an evil spirit from Jehovah 
terrified him." His servants, who began to experience the terrible 
caprices of a despot's incipient madness, advised him to try the charms 
of music, always powerful against melancholy, and believed in the 
East to possess a magical influence over wild and venomous beasts as 
well as savage men. Saul consented, and sent to Bethlehem for David, 
who was recommended to him on the grounds just now stated. Jesse 
sent his son with a present to the king ; and that harp, which has 
since cheered many a perturbed spirit, refreshed the soul of Saul and 
dispelled his evil fancies. The narrator of this incident very natu- 
rally connects the favor gained by David's success with his ultimate 
advancement at the court of Saul, who obtained Jesse's consent to 
David's remaining with him, and made him his armor-bearer. But 
it does not follow that this took place at once ; and such a view is 
quite inconsistent with the plain statement that David returned from 
Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. His departure from the 
court explains Saul's forgetfulness, and Abner's ignorance of his per- 
son and family. The commander of the forces was not likely to trou- 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 211 

ble himself about the young shepherd-minstrel ; and, to say nothing 
of the proverbially short memory of kings for their benefactors, Saul 
had chiefly seen him in his hours of madness. Such is what we may 
safely infer to have been the course of events before the encounter 
with Goliath, without professing to decide whether they all occurred 
during the encampment opposite to Ephes-dammim, or in part at an 
earlier period of the campaign. 

Let us return to the hostile armies at Ephes-dammim. 
' The camps of Philistia and Israel were pitched upon two 
heights, separated by the valley of Elah, across which the hosts con- 
fronted one another in battle array morning after morning. A strange 
cause delayed their conflict. Every morning a champion of Gath, 
named Goliath, came forth out of the camp of the Philistines, and 
stalked down into the valley to offer single combat. His height was 
six cubits and a span ; he was armed in full panoply of brass (a rare 
thing in those days, and especially among the Israelites), and a coat 
of mail weighing 5000 shekels. His spear-head of iron, a metal then 
much rarer than brass, weighing 600 shekels, and its shaft was like a 
weaver's beam. Before him marched an armor-bearer, carrying his 
shield ; and the whole description resembles, what it perhaps suggested, 
the poet's moon-like orb of Satan's shield, and his spear like " the 
mast of some great ammiral." With a voice answering to his form, 
he demanded of " the servants of Saul " to find a warrior to meet him, 
a free-born Philistine, and proposed that the nation whose champion 
was defeated should serve the other. His appearance struck dismay 
into Saul and all his people ; they stood motionless throughout the 
day ; and at length, the defiance having been repeated in the evening, 
both armies retired to their camps. 

This scene had been repeated for forty days, when David returned 
to the camp, on a visit to his brethren. He reached the circle of bag- 
gage outside the camp at the moment when both armies were drawn 
up, and the battle-cry was already raised. The temptation was irre- 
sistible. He left the bread and parched corn and cheeses, which he 
had brought as presents for his brothers and their captain, with the 
guard of the baggage, and ran into the ranks where his brethren 
stood. As he spoke to them, the champion of Gath approached and 
uttered his defiance, and all who stood near fled before him. The 
Spirit which rested upon David moved him with indignation at such 
a reproach on Israel. " Who," he asked, " is this Philistine, that 
he should defy the armies of the living God?" The bv-standers told 
him that Saul would give his daughter to the man who should kill 



278 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



the Philistine, and enrich him greatly, and make his house free in 
Israel. Heedless of the taunts of Eliab, who rebuked his presump- 
tion with the authority of an elder brother, David repeated his in- 
quiries till his words came to the ears of Saul. When brought before 
the king he bade Israel dismiss their fear, for he would go and fight 
with the Philistine. Xot with proud contempt, but with generous 
anxiety, Saul reminded him that he was but a youth, and the Philis- 
tine a warrior from his youth. But David had a shepherd's exploits 
against wild beasts, not to boast of, but to plead in support of his 
faith, that " Jehovah, who had delivered him out of the paw of the 
lion, and out of the paw of the bear, would deliver him out of the 

hand of the Philistine." "Go! and 
Jehovah be with thee !" said Saul, his 
own early trust in God revived by the 
contagion of example. He armed David 
for the combat in his own armor, and 
girded him with his own sword; but 
David, after the first few steps, cast them 
off as an untried encumbrance and be- 
took himself to those shepherds' weapons, 
for their skill in which we have alreadv 
seen that his countrymen were famous. 
The only arms of David were his shep- 
herd's staff and sling, with five pebbles 
which he took from the water-course and 
placed in his pouch. The Philistine's 
scorn for the ruddy youth swelled into 
rage at the mode of his attack : "Am I a 
dog," he asked, " that thou comest to me 
with staves?" He seems to have overlooked the sling, "and he 
cursed him by his gods." David answered his threats with the calm 
certainty of victory which befitted a champion who avowed that the 
battle was Jehovah's. Both advanced, David with the swiftness of 
foot for which he was famous ; but before his foe came close, he took 
a stone from his bag and slung it into the forehead of the Philistine, 
who fell to the ground upon his face. David rushed in and stood 
upon him, and, drawing the Philistine's own sword from its sheath, 
cut off his head. At this Bight the Philistine army fled, pursued by 
Israel with great slaughter as far as Gath, and even *o the gates of 
Ekron, whence the victors returned to spoil their camp. David's 
own trophies were the head, the armor, and the sword of the fallen 




A SLIXGER. 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 279 

champion. The first he exposed at Jerusalem ; the second he put in 
his own tent ; and the last he laid up in the tabernacle at Nob, till he 
took it for his own weapon in his time of need. 

As David had gone forth to the encounter, Saul had asked Abner 
whose son the young man was, but Abner could not tell him. Saul 
repeated the inquiry of David himself when Abner ushered the youth 
into his presence, with the head of the Philistine in his hand ; and on 
learning his father's name, Saul sent to ask Jesse to let David remain 
in his presence, and he made him his armor-bearer. But Saul gave 
him more than the sunshine of royal favor, the warm love of his im- 
pulsive nature ; while his son Jonathan conceived for David an affec- 
tion which at once ripened into one of those friendships that have be- 
come proverbial in history — the perfect union of the " friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother." They made a covenant, .which was 
faithfully observed even when Saul became David's enemy, and, 
according to the custom in such cases, Jonathan clothed David with 
his own garments, to his sword and bow, and girdle. 

In this new position, David confirmed the character for prudence 
which had at first been given him. Employed by the king in vari- 
ous important matters, he is repeatedly said to have " behaved him- 
self wisely in all his ways," " more wisely than all the servants of 
Saul," and the reason is given, " Jehovah was with him." He needed 
all his prudence, for Saul's love began soon to turn to jealousy. It is 
a very interesting question, whether any tidings of Samuel's visit to 
Bethlehem had reached the court. It is alike difficult to understand 
the keeping of such a secret, and the conduct of Saul and Jonathan 
to David if it had transpired. But something may be ascribed, on 
the one hand, to the jealousy between Judah and Benjamin, which 
would lead the elders of Bethlehem to keep a secret so vital to their 
tribe ; or something, on the other supposition, to the fatalism of Saul 
and the romantic generosity of Jonathan, combined with his faith in 
the providence of Jehovah. On the whole, we can hardly think that 
David was yet viewed as Saul's anointed successor, though Jonathan 
afterward recognizes him in that character, and Saul openly denounces 
him as a rival. The first occasion for this jealousy was given by the 
songs of the Hebrew women, who came out of every city to greet the 
victors on their return from the war with the Philistines ; and, as 
they trooped forth " singing and dancing, with tabrets, with joy, and 
instruments of music," they added to their wonted acclamation, 

" Saul hath slain his thousands," 
the response of the whole chorus, 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

••And David his ten thousands." 

From that hour Saul viewed David with the evil eye, and his fits 
of melancholy became charged with impulses of murder. On the very 
next day he twice cast his spear at David as he sat at the royal table, 
and David only escaped by fleeing from Saul's presence. The kind's 
saner hours were haunted by a jealous fear, which increased with 
David's prosperity. He removed him from his office about his per- 
son, and made him captain over a thousand ; but the only result was 
that David became better known and more beloved by all the people. 
Saul then began to plot more systematically against his life. He 
offered to perform the promise held out to the conqueror of Goliath 
by giving him his daughter Merab ; urging him to win the prize by 
new enterprises, in which he hoped he might fall by the hand of the 
Philistines. After all, when the time for the marriage arrived. Merab 
was given to another. Meanwhile Saul's second daughter. Michal, 
had become enamored of David ; and Saul, with the low cunning of a 
diseased mind, saw another opportunity for his destruction. He em- 
ployed his servants to demand of David a dowry which could only be 
procured by the slaughter of a hundred Philistines ; but David went 
down with his own troop and slew two hundred, and laid their bloody 
spoils at Saul's feet, thus at once disappointing the hope of his des- 
truction, and leaving him no excuse for breaking his word. He 
became the king's son-in-law ; and, as Saul would naturally keep up 
appearances, this was probably the occasion of his elevation to the 
command of the body-guard, a post only second to that of Abner. 
David's wife proved, like Jonathan, his faithful friend ; far which 
Saul only hated him the more, and " became. his enemy continually." 
He no longer concealed his thoughts, but ordered Jonathan and his 
courtiers to kill David. Jonathan, however, tried the effect of an 
earnest remonstrance with his father, contriving that David should 
overhear the conversation, 50 as to be assured of Saul's real feelings, 
and the result was the restoration of David to Saul's favor. 

This reconciliation lasted only for a short time. David's 
exploits in a new war with the Philistines again pro- 
voked the fury of Saul, who nearly pinned him to the wall with his 
spear for the second time. David fled to his house, round which Saul 
B : a watch during the night, intending to kill him in the morning. 
Michal saved her husband's life by letting him down out of a window. 
She placed an image in his bed, and told Saul's messengers that he 

- sick. Saul's persistent demand to have him brought to him ex- 
d the deception, which Michal boldly justified. Meanwhile 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 281 

David went to Samuel at Ramah, and dwelt with him at Naioth (the 
pastures), near the city among the " schools of the prophets," * where 
David doubtless cultivated his native gifts of psalmody by more sys- 
tematic instruction than he had yet received. When the messenger 
sent by Saul to take him saw the company of the prophets prophesy- 
ing with Samuel at their head, the Spirit of God fell upon them also, 
and they prophesied. This was repeated thrice; and at last Saul 
went himself. No sooner had he reached the well of Sechu, at the 
foot of the hill of Ramah, than the Spirit of God came upon him, and 
he prophesied all the way as he went to Naioth. There he stripped 
off his outer clothes, and fell down before Samuel, prophesying all 
that day and night. Well might this melancholy exhibition of re- 
luctant homage, so different from his first willing reception of the 
divine spirit, cause the repetition of the surprise then uttered in scorn- 
ful incredulity, but now grounded in sad experience, which gave new 
force to the proverb, " Is Saul also among the prophets ?" 

* The sacerdotal order was originally the instrument by which the members 
of the Jewish theocracy were taught and governed in things spiritual. But 
during the time of the judges the priesthood sank into a state of degeneracy, and 
the people were no longer affected by the acted lessons of the ceremonial service. 
They required less enigmatic warnings and exhortations. Under these circum- 
stances a new moral power was evoked — the Prophetic Order. Samuel was the 
instrument used at once for effecting a reform in the sacerdotal order (1 Chr. ix. 
22), and for giving to the prophets a position of importance which they had never 
before held. So important was the work wrought by him that he is classed in 
Holy Scripture with Moses (Jer. xv. 1 ; Ps. xcix. 6 ; Acts iii. 24), Samuel being 
the great religious reformer and organizer of the prophetical order, as Moses was 
the great legislator and founder of the priestly rule. 

Samuel took measures to make his work of restoration permanent as well as 
effective for the moment. For this purpose he instituted companies, or colleges 
of prophets. One we find in his lifetime at Ramah (1 Sam. xix. 19, 20) ; others 
afterward at Bethel (2 K. ii. 3), Jericho (2 K. ii. 5), Gilgal (2 K. iv. 38), and 
elsewhere (2 K. vi. 1). Their constitution and object were similar to those of 
theological colleges. Into them were gathered promising students, and here they 
were trained for the office which they were afterward destined to fulfil. So 
successful were these institutions, that from the time of Samuel to the closing 
of the Canon of the Old Testament, there seems never to have been wanting a 
due supply of men to keep up the line of official prophets. The apocryphal books 
of the Maccabees (1. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41) and of Ecclesiasticus (xxxvi. 15) 
represent them as extinct. The colleges appear to have consisted of students 
differing in number. Sometimes they were very numerous (1 K. xviii. 4, xxii. 
6; 2 K. ii. 16). One elderly, or leading prophet, presided over them (1 Sam. 
xix. 20), called their father (1 Sam. x 12), or master (2 K. ii. 3), who was appa- 
rently admitted to his office by the ceremony of anointing (1 K. xix. 16 ; Is. lxi. 
1 ; Ps. cv. 15). They were called his sons. Their chief subject of study was, no 
doubt, the law and its interpretation ; oral, as distinct from symbolical, teaching 



282 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Saul seems to have returned from Raman, professing to be reconciled 
to David, whom he expected to resume his place at court j but David 
only left his refuge at Ramah to appeal to Jonathan against his father's 
persecution. He obtained his friend's consent to a decisive experiment 
on Saul's intentions, and they arranged a meeting, at which David 
was to learn his fate. At the same time they renewed their covenant, 
with the remarkable addition of the oath which Jonathan required of 
David, evidently in anticipation of his succeeding to the crown : "Thou 
shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house forever ; no ! not when 
Jehovah hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of 
the earth ;" and David solemnly ratified this covenant for his descend- 
ants as well as himself, and afterward observed it faithfully. The 
next day was the feast of the new moon ; and instead of appearing at 
the king's table, David hid himself in the place agreed upon with 
Jonathan, a great heap of stones, called Ezel, in a field near the resi- 
dence of Saul. Saul sat down to the banquet with Abner and Jonathan, 
and said nothing of David's absence, but found an excuse for him in 



being henceforward tacitly transferred from the priestty to the prophetical order. 
Subsidiary subjects of instruction were music and sacred poetry, both of which 
had been connected with prophecy from the time of Moses (Ex. xv. 20) and the 
judges (Judg. iv. 4, v. 1). The prophets that met Saul "came down from the 
high place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp before them " 
(1 Sam. x. 5). Elijah calls a minstrel to evoke the prophetic gift in himself (2. K. 
iii. 15). David "separates to the service of the sons of Asaph and of Heman and 
of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps and with psalteries and with cym- 
bals. . . . All these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of 
the Lord with cymbals, psalteries, and harps for the service of the house of God " 
(1 Chr. xxv. 1-6). Hymns, or sacred songs, are found in the Books of Jonah 
(ii. 2), Isaiah (xii. 1, xxvi. 1), Habakkuk (iii. 2). And it was probably the duty 
of the prophetical students to compose verses to be sung in the Temple (see 
Lowth, Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, Lect. xviii.). Having been themselves 
trained and taught, the prophets, whether still residing within their college, or 
having left its precincts, had the task of teaching others. From the question ad- 
dressed to the Shunamite hy her husband, " Wherefore wilt thou go to him to- 
day ? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath " (2 K. iv. 23), it appears that weekly 
and monthly religious meetings were held as an ordinary practice by the prophets. 
Thus we rind that " Elisha sat in his house,' 1 engaged in his official occupation 
,cf. Ezek. viii. 1, xiv. 1, xx. 1), "and the elders sat with him" (2 K. vi. 32), 
when the King of Israel sent to slay him. It was at these meetings probably that 
many of the warnings and exhortations on morality and spiritual religiou were 
addressed by the prophets to their countrymen. The general appearance and 
life of the prophet were very similar to those of the Eastern dervish at the pres- 
ent day. His dress was a hairy garment, girt with a leathern girdle (Is. xx. 2 ; 
Zech. xiii. 4 ; Matt. iii. 4). He was married or unmarried, as he chose, but his man- 
ner of life and diet were stern and austere 2 K. iv. 10, 38 ; 1 K. xix. G ; Matt. iii. 43. 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 



283 



his own mind on the ground of ceremonial uncleanness. On the second 
day, however, his suspicions were thoroughly roused, and lie demanded 
of Jonathan the cause of David's absence. Jonathan's reply that he 
had given David leave to attend a family feast at Bethlehem (where, 
in fact, David may have spent these two days), brought down his 
father's rage upon his own head. With the deepest insult upon his 
birth, Saul taunted him with his friendship for David, told him that 
his kingdom would never be established during David's life, and or- 
dered him to fetch him, that he might be slain. When Jonathan re- 
monstrated, Saul hurled his spear at him, as he had done twice before 
at David, and Jonathan left the room in fierce anger. The next morn- 
ing he went out to the field where David was hiding; and his manner 
of directing his attendant 



to gather up the arrows 
he shot gave David the 
signal to fly for his life. 

But first he came out 
from his hiding-place ; 
and the friends renewed 
their covenant before part- 
ing, and with embraces 
and tears, in which Da- 
vid was the more vehe- 
ment, they parted only 
to meet again for one 
brief interview. It was 
reserved for David to 
give the last proof of his 
affection for Jonathan by 

his lamentation over his untimely fate, and the protection which he gave 
to his son Mephibosheth. Meanwhile he found himself a solitary exile, 
soon to be hunted " like a partridge on the mountains." 

David, thus warned by his friend, repaired to Nob, a city belong- 
ing to the priests, and which at that time contained the tabernacle. 
Ahimelech, the high-priest, was alarmed at his coming alone ; but 
David pretended an urgent commission from Saul; and saying that he 
had appointed his servants to meet him at a certain place, he asked 
five loaves of bread for himself and these imaginary attendants. The 
high-priest had none but the old shew-bread which had just been re- 
moved and replaced by the hot loaves, for it was the beginning of the 
Sabbath; and he gave this to David, on his assurance that he and his 




SHEW-BREAD. 



284 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

attendants were undefiled. This act was in direct violation of the 
law; but our Lord refers to it as justified by necessity, in illustration 
of the great principle, " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice," which 
overrides the mere letter of the positive law. David's next care was 
to arm himself. With the ambiguous explanation that he had had no 
time to take his weapons because the king's business required haste, he 
asked for a sword or spear ; and the high-priest gave him the sword 
of Goliath, which had been laid up behind the ephod. We cannot 
think that David's excuses imposed upon the high-priest, but rather 
that Ahimelech's readiness to aid him was a sign of his attachment to 
David's cause, founded, perhaps, on some knowledge of his divine 
designation. If any such feeling influenced him, however, he kept it 
to himself, and did not consult the oracle on David's behalf, as Saul 
afterward charged him with doing, on the report of Doeg, his chief 
herdsman, who happened to witness the transaction. 

From Nob David fled to Achish, king of Gath ; but the Philistine 
chieftains showed so quick a memory of his slaughter of Goliath that 
he only saved his life by feigning the madness of a slavering idiot, 
and Achish dismissed him with contempt. He found a refuge for 
himself in the largest of the caves in the limestone rocks which border 
the Shefelah, or great maritime plain near Adullam, a city of Judah, 
not far from Bethlehem. Here he became established as an independ- 
ent outlaw. Besides his brethren, who fled to him from their neigh- 
boring native city, he was joined by all those classes who are ever 
ready for revolt — debtors, malcontents, and persons in distress, such 
as those who had gathered round Jephthah in his outlawry. His fath- 
er and mother he placed in safety with the King of Moab, a people 
with whom the family were connected through Ruth. We must not 
think of David in the Cave of Adullam as a rebel against Saul, but 
rather as an independent chieftain, making war from his own strong- 
hold against the Philistines. Among his band of 400 men, some 
performed deeds of valor which gave them a permanent precedence 
among his warriors. Two such trios were especially distinguished ; 
and among the second three was Abishai, the son of David's sister 
Zeruiah, whose two other sons, Joab and Asahel, probably joined 
David at this time, though not yet mentioned by name. To this 
period belongs the romantic story of the water of the well of Bethlehem. 
David expressed a longing for the water of which he used to drink as a 
boy ; and the three chief heroes cut their way through the army of the 
Philistines, which lay encamped in the valley of Rephaim, to the gate 
of Bethlehem, and brought the water to David. But with self-denial 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 285 

like that of Alexander in the desert of Gedrosia, and Philip Sidney in 
his thirst of death at Zutphen, David poured the water on the ground, 
exclaiming, " Shall I drink the blood of these men, that have put their 
lives in jeopardy ? " Another band joined him here of men of Judah 
and Benjamin, under Amasai, the son of his other sister Abigail, and 
eleven men of Gad crossed the Jordan to his camp. With them per- 
haps came the prophet Gad, who is now first mentioned. He had 
probably been David's companion in the prophetic school at E-amah, 
and may now have been sent by Samuel to counsel David by the 
word of Jehovah. 

By his direction, David left his concealment at Adullam 
for the forest of Hareth, among the hills of Judah ; and 
Saul no sooner heard of his appearance, than he set out in person to 
hunt him down. The king had begun to distrust his own immediate 
followers. As he stood with them under a grove at Ramah he 
taunted the men of his own tribe as having no feeling for him, and as 
conspiring with his own son on behalf of David, from whom they 
could not expect the benefits which would doubtless be reserved for 
Judah. None responded to the appeal but his Edomite officer, Doeg. 
He recounted what he had witnessed at Nob, artfully suppressing the 
tale by which David had deceived Ahimelech, and adding that the 
high-priest had asked counsel of the oracle for David. Ahimelech, 
summoned to Saul's presence, denied the latter charge, and protested 
his ignorance of any treason on the part of David, whom he had 
treated as the king's son-in-law, honored in his court and intrusted 
with his confidence. Saul's fury regarded this plea as little as 
Ahimelech's sacred character, and he called on his guards to slay him, 
with all the priests of Nob. When none obeyed, he repeated the 
order to Doeg, and this son of Esau put to death eighty-five priests 
on that one day. Nor was this all. The city of Nob was given up 
to massacre, and men, women, children, and sucklings, oxen, asses, 
and sheep, were all put to the sword. One only of the sons of 
Ahimelech, named Abiathar, escaped and fled to David, who now 
saw with remorse the effect of the deceit he had practised on the high- 
priest in Doeg's presence, and promised Abiathar his protection. 
We cannot fail to see in this massacre the working of the curse on 
the house of Eli. 

David had now in his camp not only a prophet, but the successor 
to the high-priesthood ; and he placed his movements under the 
guidance of the oracle of Jehovah. With this divine sanction, he 
overbore the fears of his followers and fell upon the Philistines, who 



286 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

had plundered the threshing-floors of Keilah, and were besieeine the 
city. Having utterly defeated the Philistines, and gained great 
booty from them in battle, David established himself in Keilah. 
Here Saul imagined he had caught him, as in a trap j and David, 
learning from God, by means of the sacred ephod, that the men of 
Keilah would give him up, left the city, with his little band, now 
amounting to 600 men, who were obliged to disperse themselves for 
safety. David moved from one lurking-place to another in the 
wilderness of Ziph, while Saul was in constant search of him. It 
was at this juncture that the last interview took place between David 
and Jonathan, who found his friend in a certain wood, " and strength- 
ened his hand in God," assuring him that he should be kino- over 
Israel, and expressing the vain hope that he himself would be next 
to him. When they had again renewed their covenant, Jonathan 
retired to his house instead of rejoining his father. The Ziphites be- 
trayed David's movements to Saul, who left Gibeah in quest of him, 
preceded by the Ziphites, tracking his very footsteps like beaters after 
game. Thus hunted like a partridge over the hills of Judah, David 
fled to the wilderness of Maon, beyond Jeshimon, in the extreme 
south. Here Saul followed him so close that David fled from his 
rock of refuo-e to one side of a mountain, while the kino; was hunting 
for him on its other side; whence the place obtained the name of 
Sela-hammahlekoth (the rock of divisions). At length Saul was 
called away by the news of an invasion of the Philistines, and David 
betook himself to the dreary fastnesses of the wilderness of Engedi, 
on the margin of the Dead Sea. Saul, having repelled the invaders, 
returned with 3000 men, chosen out of all Israel, to the pursuit of 
David and his little band, who were now hunted from rock to rock 
like the wild goats of that desert. It happened that Saul went alone 
into a cave where David and his men were hidden in the lateral 
caverns. Urged to use so favorable an opportunity, David contented 
himself with creeping behind the king and cutting off the skirt of 
his robe. But his heart smote him even for this insult to the 
anointed of Jehovah. Following Saul out of the cave, he cried after 
him, " My lord the king," and bowing down before him, he showed 
him his skirt, as a proof that he had spared his life, and made a most 
pathetic appeal to the king's forbearance, and protestation of his own 
innocence. The old impulsive affection of Saul burst the barriers of 
jealous hatred. David had called him " Father," and with tears he 
responds, " Is this thy voice, my son David ?" He confesses his 
injustice and David's magnanimity, acknowledges the divine decree 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 287 

which had given the kingdom of Israel into the hand of David, and 
takes an oath of him not to cut off his name and house in Israel. 
Saul returned home, but David remained in his fastnesses. 

About this time Samuel died, and Israel buried him with great 
pomp at Eamah, in his own country, and the people mourned him 
bitterly. David, probably feeling that the last restraint upon Saul 
was now removed, retired southward to the fastnesses of the wilder- 
ness of Paran. 

There lived at Maon a descendant of Caleb, named Nabal, pos- 
sessed of great wealth. His flock of 3000 sheep and 1000 goats fed 
on the pastures of Carmel, and David's band had not only scrupu- 
lously refrained from molesting them, but had even protected them 
against the marauding tribes of the country. It was David's custom 
to occupy his followers in this way, and to obtain subsistence for 
them in return for their services, and at the time of the sheep shear- 
ing he sent ten young men, with a friendly greeting, to ask Nabal 
for a present. The man was a mean churl, and not only spurned the 
request, and denied the claim with contempt, but returned an in- 
sulting message to David, who, fired with indignation upon its 
delivery to him, swore that he would put every man of Nabal's 
house to the sword. He took 400 men with him, and left 200 to 
guard the baggage — the first example of a proportion which after- 
ward became a rule. Meanwhile Nabal's wife Abigail, a beautiful 
and intelligent woman, being informed by a servant of her husband's 
behavior, hastened to provide, without his knowledge, an abundant 
present of bread, parched corn, sheep ready dressed, skins of wine, 
clusters of raisins, and cakes of figs. Sending forward her servants 
with the asses thus loaded, she went to meet David just as he 
emerged from the passes of the hills. Not content with entreating 
his forbearance, she acknowledged him as the champion who fought 
the battles of Jehovah, and as the future leader of Israel. Deploring 
the persecution he suffered from Saul, she used those powerful and 
oft-quoted figures : " The soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle 
of life with Jehovah thy God : and the souls of thine enemies, them 
shall He sling out, as out of the middle of a sling." Her beauty and 
sense made a deep impression upon David. For the present, he sent 
her home in safety, accepting her gift, and thanking her for keeping 
him from shedding blood. Nabal had meanwhile feasted like a 
king till he was drunk ; so his wife kept her news till the morning. 
The shock was too great for his cowardice and avarice: "his heart 
died within him, and he became as a stone ;" and in ten days he 



288 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




SKIN BOTTLES. 



B. C. 1058. 



died. Abigail found a new husband in David, whose wife Michal 
had been given by Saul to another; and about the same time David 
also married Ahinoam of Jezreel. 

Meanwhile Saul had forgotten the promises made under 
his transient impulse of kindness and repentance. David's 
old enemies, the Ziphites, came to tell the king that he was again in 
the stronghold of Hachilah, east of Jeshimon, and Saul again led his 
chosen army of 3000 men, under Abner, in pursuit of him. Once 
more Saul fell into the power of David, and was magnanimously 
spared. Informed by his spies of the position of Saul's camp, David 
went down with his nephew Abishai by night, and found Saul asleep 
by the side of Abner in the midst of his body-guard, with his well- 
known spear stuck into the ground beside his bolster. Abishai 
proposed to smite Saul to the earth with that spear which had twice 
been hurled at David ; but David left his fate in the hands of God, 
and refused to stretch forth his hand against Jehovah's anointed. 
They took the spear and the cruse of water that was by his side and 
left the camp, where all were still sunk in a sleep sent by God. 
Retiring a safe distance to the top of a hill, David shouted to the 
people and to Abner, whom he taunted for the little care with which 
so valiant a man had watched over the king's life ! Saul knew the 
voice, and the scene of remonstrance, confession, and forgiveness was 
again repeated, but with some striking variations. Saul begged 
David to return to him, promising not to harm him, and confessing 
that " he had played the fool ;" and when David would only trust 
his life to God and not to him, he parted from him with the words 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 289 

of prophetic blessing : " Blessed be thou, my son David, thou shalt 
both do great things, and also shalt still prevail." 

This was their last interview ; for David, despairing of safety while 
within reach of Saul, resolved finally to seek shelter among the Philis- 
tines. Their power was now such that Saul could scarcely make head 
against them, much less pursue David into their country ; and, in fact, 
lie abandoned the attempt. David went, as before, to Achish, king 
of Gath, no longer as a solitary fugitive, but with his whole household, 
and his band of 600 men. This force, and still more, perhaps, the 
knowledge that he had finally broken with Saul, secured him respect, 
though the Philistine chieftains withheld from him their confidence. 
Achish assigned, for his residence and maintenance, the frontier city 
of Ziklag, which consequently belonged ever after to the kings of 
Judah. We have here the only note of time in the history of David's 
wanderings. The whole time he spent in the country of the Philistines, 
that is, to his departure for Hebron after the death of Saul, was a year 
and four months, or, according to ^^^^==^ ==== 

the LXX. and Josephus, four i ggg ______ 

months, or a little more. Which- JJP ' <! ^™BE-- P^ 

ever be the true reading, it suggests '^^^^m^-^^^m W£*^j3SSL 
a reflection on the evils that sprang % §8jl§§ft tf?l 
from his want of faith and patience '^^fflE'^^^^^^^B 
for so short a period. His presence "^^^^^^^^^^^mB^^^^^^ 
in Judah would have given an op- an eastern tent. 

portunity which Saul could hardly 

have refused for calling him forth as the champion of Israel. At all 
events, he would have been at hand to retrieve the disaster, and would 
doubtless have been hailed as king by the united voice of Israel. As 
it was, however, his nation suffered a terrible defeat, which, instead of 
doing his best to avert, he narrowly escaped taking a share in inflict- 
ing ; his recognition as king of Israel was postponed for seven years 
and a half, at the cost of a civil war and the permanent alienation of 
Judah from the rest of Israel, and meanwhile he was involved in a 
course of pitiable deceit. He could not enjoy the protection of Achish 
without rendering him service against his country. So he sallied forth 
from Ziklag, but instead of attacking Israel, he fell upon the tribes of l 
the southern desert of Shur, toward the confines of Egypt, the Crcsluir- 
ites, the Gezrites, and the Amalekites, and exhibited their spoil to 
Achish as having been won in the south of Judah, and from the allied 
tribes of the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites. To guard against detec- 
tion, he put to the sword every man and woman of each settlement 
19 



290 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

that he attacked. Achish himself was thoroughly imposed upon, and 
put such uulimited confidence in David that he summoned him to join 
in a grand attack which the Philistines were preparing against Israel, 
and David sank so low as to boast of the courage he would displav. 
The distrust of the other lords of the Philistines saved him from this 
dilemma. 

"We must now look back to Saul. Since the death of Samuel and 
the flight of David, darkness had gathered about his declining path 
like clouds around the setting sun. The prophetic inspiration which 
had once marked him as the servant of Jehovah found vent, as we 
have seen at Rarnah, in ravings scarcely to be distinguished from 
those of his madness. His religious zeal, always rash, as in the vow 
which so nearly cost the life of Jonathan, was now shown in deeds of 
sanguinary violence. If the slaughter of the witches and necroman- 
cers be defended by the strict letter of the Mosaic law, which however 
Saul himself had long permitted to slumber, the massacre of the Gib- 
eonites was the violation of a covenant which formed one of the sacred 
traditions of the nation, and was afterward visited as such on " the 
blood-stained house of Saul." This deed may have been a sequel to 
Saul's inexpiable crime, the massacre of the priests at Xob. The day 
of retribution now came. 

The hosts of the Philistines had assembled at the great 
battle-field of Palestine, the valley of Jezreel. They occu- 
pied the southern slopes of the " Little Herrnon," by Shunem, while 
Saul and the Israelites were encamped on the opposite hills of Gilboa. 
A panic fear seized Saul at the sight of the army of the Philistines. 
Fain would he have inquired of Jehovah ; but the high-priest was a 
fugitive from his murderous wrath ; he had alienated the prophets, 
and their chief was in the camp of David ; and God gave him no 
answer, " neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets." In his 
extremity, he resorted to the very impostors who had been the victims 
of his zeal. Among those who had escaped him was a woman who 
lived at Endor, on the other side of the Little Hermon. Her super- 
natural pretensions are described by the epithet "a woman of Ob" 
(the skin or bladder) which the LXX. explains as a ventriloquist. 
Saul went to her abode bv nicrht and in disguise, with only two at- 
tendants, and desired her to bring up from the dead the person whom 
he should name. Fearing a snare, and having perhaps already some 
suspicions as to the quality of her visitors, the woman only consented 
on Saul's taking an oath that she should not be punished. She then 
inquired whom she should bring up, and Saul asked for Samuel. 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 



291 



Then (to follow the narrative and reserve criticism for the end) the 
woman saw (or professed to see) the form of Samuel rising from the 
earth ; and, uttering a loud cry, she charged Saul with having deceived 
her, for she now knew him to be the king. He calmed her fears, and 
demanded what she had seen. " I saw," she answered, " a god-like 
form rising up out of the earth." In reply to Saul's inquiries, she 
further described the apparition as that of " an old man covered with 
a mantle," doubtless the prophetic robe always worn by Samuel. By 
these tokens Saul recognized Samuel, and bowed his face to the ground, 
while Samuel asked, " Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up ?" 
Saul poured forth his sore distress, attacked as he was by the Philis- 
tines and abandoned by Jehovah. Samuel replied that it was in vain 
to resort to him, for this was but the fulfilment of his prophetic word ; 
that Jehovah had torn the kingdom out of his hand, and given it to 
David, because he had disobeyed him in sparing the Amalekites. He 
foretold his defeat by the Philistines, and added that on the morrow 
Saul and his sons should be with him among the dead. At this sen- 
tence* Saul fell prostrate his whole length upon the earth, and fainted 
away with fear and exhaustion, for he had fasted all the day and 
night. Having, at the urgent pressure of the woman and his attend- 
ants, partaken of a meal, the best that she could prepare for him, Saul 
returned to the camp the same night. 

Meanwhile David's relations with the Philistine king Achish had 
obliged him to repair with his band to the Philistine camp. He was 
greatly troubled at the prospect of being obliged to fight against 
Israel, and was casting about in his mind for some pretext upon 
w r hich he could avoid that necessity without compromising himself 
with his protector, when he was brought out of his dilemma by the 
jealousy of the Philistine nobles, who refused to allow him to accom- 
pany their army, as they could not be convinced, even by the 
protestations of Achish himself, that the conqueror of Goliath would 
be their faithful ally. After a show of great reluctance, and renewed 
expressions of confidence from Achish, David and his men departed 
with the morning light. 

Having thus escaped the great danger of having to fight against 
Israel, he found that another disaster had been occasioned by his 
march with the Philistines. The Amalekites had seized the oppor- 
tunity to take vengeance for David's forays; and when he and his 
men arrived at Ziklag the third day after leaving the Philistine 
camp, they found the city burnt, and their wives and children carried 
away as captives, including the two wives of David himself. They 



292 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

wept over the ruin, and began to threaten David's life; "but David 
encouraged himself in Jehovah his God." He summoned Abiathar 
with the oracular ephod, and received the direction of Jehovah to 
pursue, with the promise of success. By means of a straggler, an 
Egyptian slave of one of the Amalekites, whom they found half dead 
with fatigue and hunger, they fell upon the enemy, who were feasting 
in all the disorder of security, and slaughtered them for a whole 
night and day, only 400 of the whole tribe escaping. Besides re- 
covering their wives and children and all their property without any 
loss, they obtained a great booty in cattle from the enemy. A ques- 
tion now arose about the division of the spoil. It had happened that 
one-third of David's 600 men were too weary, after their long march, 
to keep up with the rest, and they had been left behind at the brook 
Besor with the baggage. As they exchanged congratulations with 
David on his return, the worst part of David's followers, "all the 
men of Belial," proposed that they should have no share in the spoil. 
David sternly forbade this injustice, and laid down what thenceforth 
became a law in Israel, that those who stayed with the baggage should 
have an equal share, man for man, with those who went to the fight. 
From his own share of the spoil he sent presents to the elders of 
Judah, to Bethel, Hebron, and other cities that he had frequented 
with his bands, and to the friendly Arabs of the desert, the Jerahmcel- 
ites and the Kenites. 

On the third day after this victor}-, David received news of the 
terrible overthrow of Saul and his army in Mount Gilboa on the day 
of his departure. The Philistines had occupied the valley of Jezreel, 
and the Israelites were driven before them up the slopes and over the 
crest of Mount Gilboa with immense loss. The hottest pursuit was 
made after Saul and the band who kept round him. His three sons 
Jonathan, Abinadab, and Melehishua, were slain, and he himself was 
mortally wounded by the Philistine archers. Disabled from flight, 
he begged his armor-bearer to draw T his sword and slay him, that his 
last moment might not be insulted by the uncircumcised foes of God. 
On his refusal, Saul fell upon his own sword and died, and his faithful at- 
tendant, who had feared to raise his hand against God's anointed, did not 
hesitate to share his fate. On the next dav the Philistines found the 
bodies of Saul and his three sons among the dead, and messengers 
were instantly dispatched through all the cities of Philistia to com- 
mand rejoicings in the idol temples. .They carried Saul's remains 
from city to city, and at last deposited the trophy in the temple of 
Ashtaroth. His head was struck from his body, and placed in the 




o 

P3 



293 



294 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

temple of Dagon, probably at Ashdod, while the headless trunk was 
exposed, with those of his sons, on the wall of the Canaanitish city of 
Bethshan. In this extremity of shame and ruin, there was one city 
whose heroic people remembered that Saul had saved them from a 
fate as shameful. While the Israelites west of Jordon were aban- 
doning their cities to be possessed by the Philistines, the men of 
Jabesh-gilead made a night march across the river and took down the 
bodies of Saul and his sons, which they carried to Jabesh and burnt- 
They buried the bones under a tamarisk-tree, and observed a fast for 
seven days. The ashes were removed long afterward by David to the 
sepulchre of Kish at Zelah. 

The sad tidings were brought to David at Ziklag by an Amalekite, 
who arrived with his clothes rent and earth upon his head, and said 
that he had escaped out of the camp of Israel, and had been an eye- 
witness of Saul's death. He told the tale of the hot pursuit; and 
then added (whether as an invention to please David, or whether he 
had really come up to the place where Saul had fallen upon his sword, 
while he was still alive) that the king, despairing of escape, had 
begged to be dispatched by his hand, and that he had dealt the last 
fatal blow. He produced the crown and armlet which Saul used to 
wear in battle, and gave them to David. The news was received with 
an unfeigned grief and consternation worthy of the reverence and 
affection which David had never lost for Saul, and of his deep love for 
Jonathan. He rent his clothes, and, with all his band, mourned and 
wept and fasted till the evening. Then he sent for the Amalekite, 
and asking how he had dared to put forth his hand to slay the 
anointed of Jehovah, he caused him to be put to death as guilty by 
his own confession. Finally, he took his harp, and poured forth a 
lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, which is the finest as well as the 
most ancient of all dirges. Under the title of " The Bow," the 
favorite weapon of Jonathan, it was recorded in " The Book of Jash- 
er," and taught as a standing lesson to the children of Judah. Its 
spirit is alike worthy of the poet and of the objects of his eulogy. 
A less generous heart, and one less devoted to duty, might have been 
content with the tribute of affection to his friend Jonathan, and have 
left the memory of his unjust master to perish in silence. But David 
was not so insensible to Saul's better qualities, to his old affection, and 
to the claim of the King of Israel to be celebrated in death by the 
same harp that had soothed his tortured mind while he lived. And 
so the poem has verified to every succeeding age its own beautiful and 
touching words. 



THE REIGN OF SAUL. 295 

This noble utterance of grief, in which David is the mouth- 
piece of Israel, forms a fit conclusion to the second period of his 
own life, as well as to the fatal experiment undertaken by the Israel- 
ites and Saul, of establishing a kingdom on the principles of self- 
will, and after the model of the nations around, in place of the royalty 
of Jehovah. 



296 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE REIGN OF DAVID. 

[b. c. 1056-1015.] 

HE battle of Gilboa left Israel in a very forlorn state. The 
country west of the Jordan was overrun by the Philistines 
who occupied the cities from which their inhabitants had fled. 
The surviving members of the house of Saul took refuge on 
the east of the Jordan, and David, by the command of God, 
removed with his band to the ancient city of Hebron, where the men 
of Judah anointed him king over their tribe. From this place he 
sent a message to the men of Jabesh-gilead, thanking them 
for the honor paid to Saul's remains, and announcing his 
accession to the throne. He was now thirty years old, and he reigned 
in Hebron seven and a-half years (b. c. 1056-1048). The next event 
recorded is Abner's proclamation of Ish-bosheth, the eldest surviving 
son of Saul, as king over Gilead, the Ashurites, the valley of Jezreel, 
Ephraim, and Benjamin, and nominally over all Israel : his residence 
was at Mahanaim, east of Jordan. It is added that Ish-bosheth was 
forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and that he reigned 
two years. Xow, as we cannot suppose an interval of five years from 
his death to David's full recognition, and as the Philistines were in 
full possession of all Israel west of Jordan except where David's power 
extended, it would seem that Abner was occupied for five years or 
more (b. c. 1056-1050) in recovering the territory of the other tribes 
from them, after which the two years of Ish-bosheth begin to be reck- 
oned, so as to end just before David's full recognition as king of all 
Israel (b. c. 1048). 

When Abner had established Ish-bosheth's power west of the Jor- 
dan, he endeavored to conquer Judah, and a civil war ensued, which 
was only ended by his own death and that of Ish-bosheth. The war 
was commenced by Abner's advancing to Gibeon, where he was met 
by the forces of Judah under Joab, the son of David's sister Zeruiah, 
who now takes a foremost place in the history. The Pool of Gibeon, 
on the opposite sides of which the armies encamped, was made mem- 
orable by the deadly combat of twelve Benjamites against twelve men 
of Judah, in which each man seized his adversary by the head with 



ANCIENT 



gfpJERUSALEM 




XD.Se. 



207 



298 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

one hand, and with the other thrust his sword through his side, so 
that all of them fell down dead together. The scene of this mutual 
slaughter received the name of Helkath-hazzurim {the field of the strong 
men). In the battle which ensued, the men of Israel were routed. 
Abner himself was closely pursued by Asahel, one of the three sons of 
Zeruiah, who were as swift-footed as the wild roe. Unable to escape, 
and unwilling to kill Asahel, Abner twice entreated him to go after 
some one else, that he might have spoils to carry back with him ; but, 
as Asahel persisted, Abner thrust him through with a back stroke of 
his spear, and he fell dead, to the dismay and grief of all who came up 
to the spot. His brothers, Joab and Abishai, pressed on the pursuit 
as far as the hill of Amman, east of Giah, in the wilderness of Gibeon. 
There, at sunset, the Benjamites rallied round Abner, and, after a 
parley between him and Joab, the latter sounded the trumpet of recall, 
and both parties retired during the night — Abner to Mahanaim, and 
Joab to Hebron. The former had lost 360 men, the latter only six- 
teen, besides Asahel, whom they buried in his father's sepulchre at 
Bethlehem. 

The war went on long without any decisive action, but with a con- 
stantly increasing advantage to the side of David ; " David waxed 
stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weak- 
er." At length Abner, on an insult received from Ish-bosheth, who 
was a mere puppet in his hands, made overtures to David, who re- 
quired, as a preliminary, the restoration of his wife Michal. David 
made the demand of Ish-bosheth, who took Michal from her second 
husband, Phaltiel, and sent her to Hebron. Abner now treated with 
the elders of Israel, and especially with the tribe of Benjamin, remind- 
ing them of David's designation by Jehovah, and of his services 
against the Philistines. So favorable was the response that he resolved 
to go in person to Hebron, with a guard of only twenty men, to rep- 
resent to David the feelings of Israel and Benjamin. David received 
and feasted him, and Abner departed with the promise to gather all 
Israel to his standard. He had not gone far, however, when he was 
recalled by Joab (who had just returned from an expedition against 
the Bedouins of the desert, and who had censured David for allowing 
an old enemy to depart in peace), and was treacherously murdered by 
Joab in revenge for the death of Asahel, whom Abner had slain in 
fair fight. In this murder Joab was aided and abetted by his brother 
Abishai. 

Calling Jehovah to witness that he and his kingdom were guiltless 
for all future time of Abner's blood, David imprecated a terrible 



THE REIGN OF DAYID. 299 

curse on Joab and his house. He then called his followers to bury 
Abner at Hebron with the honors due to a prince and chieftain. 
Joab was obliged to join in the universal mourning, "and. King 
David himself followed the bier." David's conduct formed the 
climax of his favor with the people, who well knew his innocence: 
" as whatsoever the king did pleased all the people." But he bitterly 
felt his impotence to restrain his too powerful relations, and vented 
his indignation in the words which have become proverbial : " These 
men, the sons of Zeruiah, be too hard for me." He added threats 
that the doer of evil should be rewarded according to his wickedness; 
but it was not till Joab had again mortally provoked him by killing 
Absalom, that he deposed him from his office of captain of the guard, 
and gave it to Amasa, whose treacherous murder filled up the 
measure of Joab's crimes. Even then David left his punishment as 
a legacy to Solomon, by whom he was put to death. 

Ish-bosheth, left helpless by the loss of Abner, fell a 
victim to the conspiracy of two of his captains, who slew 
him on his bed, intending to proclaim Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth 
(or Merib-baal), who was not only an infant, but lame. Being a 
child of five years old when the tidings were brought of the death of 
Saul and Jonathan, he was carried off by his nurse, who let him fall 
in the hurry of the flight, and so lamed him for life. His royalty 
was as impotent as his person ; but yet he was the least unfortunate 
of Saul's house, from the favor which David showed him for his 
father's sake, and in fulfilment of their covenant. We shall hear 
much of him afterward ; but meanwhile it is not clear from the 
narrative whether he was even proclaimed or brought out from his 
place of refuge, which, according to Josephus, was in the house of 
Machir ben-Ammiel, a prince of Gad or Manasseh, at Lo-debar, near 
Mahanaim. 

The murderers of Ish-bosheth carried his head to David at 
Hebron, only to meet the fate of the messenger of Saul's death. 
They were put to death ; their hands and feet cut off, and their 
bodies hanged over the Pool of Hebron, while the head of Ish- 
bosheth was buried in the sepulchre of Abner. 

The minds of all the people were not united in favor of David. 
The elders came to him at Hebron, recognizing him as their brother, 
recalling his leadership of Israel in the time of Saul, and acknow- 
ledging that God had appointed him "to feed his people Israel." So 
they anointed him as king of Israel at Hebron, and he made with 
them a covenant, based doubtless on the law given by Moses for the 



THE REIGN OF DAY ID. 301 

constitution of the kingdom, and the event was celebrated by a three 
days' feast. David was now at the head of a powerful array, com- 
posed of the best warriors of all the tribes, who came ready armed to 
him at Hebron. Judah sent 6800, Simeon 7100, Levi 4600, besides 
3700 priests, under Jehoiada, with whom came the young Zadok, 
already famous for his valor, and destined to bring back the high- 
priesthood into the house of Eleazar. Even Benjamin, which had 
hitherto stood fast by the family of Saul, contributed 3000 men ; 
Ephraim, 20,800, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, 18,000. Two hun- 
dred captains led the whole tribe of Issachar, whose decision gained 
for them the praise that "they had understanding of the times, to 
know what Israel ought to do." The 50,000 of Zebulun were all 
"expert in war, well armed, firm in their ranks, and of no double 
heart;" Naphtali furnished 37,000 such warriors, under 1000 cap- 
tains; Dan, 28,600; and Asher, 40,000. The tribes of Keuben, 
Gad, and half-Manasseh sent 120,000 well-armed warriors across 
the Jordan. The sum is 337,600 men, besides the whole tribe of 
Issachar. 

Having this powerful army, David resolved to remove the seat of 
government from the remote Hebron nearer to the centre of the 
country, and his choice at once fell upon Jerusalem, the strong city 
of the Jebusites, situated on a rocky height 2600 feet above the level 
of the sea. But another reason also probably recommended Jeru- 
salem to David as the capital of his kingdom. It was impossible for 
him to desert the great tribe to which he belonged, and over which 
he had been reigning for some years. Now Jerusalem was the natu- 
ral escape out of this difficulty, since the boundary between Judah 
and Benjamin ran at the foot of the hill on which the city stands. 
Jerusalem consisted of an upper and a lower city ; and though the 
latter was taken by the men of Judah in the time of Joshua, the 
upper city defied their attacks, and the whole remained a Jebusite city 
till the period at which we have arrived. 

David now advanced against the place at the head of 
the formidable army already described. No doubt lie 
approached the city from the south. As before, the lower city was 
immediately taken, and, as before, the citadel held out. The un- 
daunted Jebusites, believing in the impregnability of their fortress, 
manned the battlements " with lame and blind." But they little 
understood the temper of the king or of those he commanded. 
David's anger was thoroughly roused by the insult, and he at once 
proclaimed to his host that the first man who would scale the rocky 



302 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

side of the fortress and kill a Jebusite should be made chief captain 
of the host. A crowd of warriors rushed forward to the attempt, but 
Joab's superior agility gained him the day, and the citadel, the fast- 
ness of Zion, was taken (1046 B. c). It is the first time that that 
memorable name appears in the history. The fortress, which now 
became the capital of the kingdom, received the name of " the city 
of David f 9 and David fortified its whole circuit round about from 
Millo, while Joab repaired the rest of the city. In this capital, the 
power of the king was now thoroughly established : " David went on, 
and grew great ; for the Lord of hosts was with him." His power 
was acknowledged by Hiram, king of Tyre, who sought for the 
alliance which he henceforth steadily maintained with David and 
Solomon, and who now sent cedar-timber from Lebanon, with 
masons and carpenters, to build David a palace. But there was 
already " a worm in the bud," which afterward blighted all David's 
happiness. Disregarding the express command of Moses, he formed 
a numerous harem. Already, while at Hebron, he had added to his 
first wife, (1) Michal, restored to him by Ish-bosheth, and to (2), 
Ahinoam, and (3), Abigail, the two wives of his wanderings, four 
others, namely, (4) Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, 
(5) Haggith, (6) Abital, and (7) Eglah ; and each of them, except 
Michal, who was childless, had borne him one son at Hebron, 
namely, (1) Amnon, (2) Chiliab, (3) Absalom, (4) Adonijah, (5) 
Shephatiah, and (6) lth ream, and one daughter, Tamar, who was 
full sister to Absalom by Maacah. At Jerusalem he took more 
wives, whose names and number are not stated, and who bore him 
ten more sons. Besides these, he had ten concubines, whose children 
are not named. This list does not include Bathsheba, whose story 
will be related presently. She bore David five sons, of whom the 
youngest, Solomon, was his successor. In all this David stopped 
short of that fatal step contemplated in the warning of Moses, and 
taken by Solomon, of multiplying to himself wives from heathen 
nations, so as to turn away his heart from God ; but the miseries he 
suffered in his family give the best answer to the folly which quotes 
Scripture in sanction of polygamy. He reigned at Jerusalem for 
thirty-three years, besides the seven years and a half in Hebron, 
making his whole reign, in round numbers, forty years (b. c. 
1056-1015). He was thirty years old at his first accession, and 
seventy at his death. It is emphatically stated that " David per- 
ceived that Jehovah had established him king over Israel, and that 
he had exalted his kingdom for his people Ixrtid's sake." 




303 



304 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

A twofold work had been given him to perform : to establish the 
worship of Jehovah in the place which he had chosen above all others 
for his abode, and to extend the kingdom of Israel to the bounds 
promised to their fathers. With the former object first in his thoughts, 
he had proposed to the tribes who gathered at Hebron that the ark 
should be brought up from Kirjath-jearini, but the project was delayed 
by war. The Philistines, resolved not to give up without an effort 
their long domination over Israel, gathered their hosts in the valley 
of Pephaim, or the valley of the Giants. At the command of God, 
David fell upon them with a fury as resistless as the outburst of water 
through a broken dike, whence the scene of slaughter was called Baal- 
perazim (the " height" of the outbursts). The Philistines were not only 
routed, but disgraced by the burning of their idols, which were left on 
the field of battle. A second victory was gained in the same valley 
by a stratagem prescribed by God, whose presence was indicated to 
the army of Israel by a rustling in the tops of the mulberry-trees, and 
the Philistines were smitten from Gibeon to Gazer. " And the fame 
of David went out into all lands ; and Jehovah brought the fear of 
him upon all nations." Henceforth David is found acting on the 
offensive against the Philistines; and meanwhile their defeat and the 
friendship of King Hiram secured peace for the nation along the 
whole maritime coast. 

David had now the long desired opportunity for the re- 
moval of the ark. He had " sworn to Jehovah, and vowed 
to the mighty God of Jacob. Surely I will not come into the taber- 
nacle of my house, nor go up into my bed ; I will not give sleep to 
mine eves, nor slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for 
Jehovah, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob." Since its re- 
storation by the Philistines, the symbol of Jehovah's presence had had 
its stated abode at Kirjath-jearim, here called Baalah, under the care 
of Abinadab and his family. Thither David went with 30,000 men, 
chosen from all the tribes, and transported the ark, with music and 
singing, from Abinadab's house in Gibeah (the citadel of Kirjath- 
jearim) on a new cart, driven by Uzzah and Ahio, the two sons of 
Abinadab. But its progress to Jerusalem suffered a melancholy in- 
terruption. As the procession reached the threshing-floor of Xachon 
(or Chidon), the oxen shook the cart, and Uzzah laid his hand upon 
the ark to steady it, forgetting that Jehovah needed not his aid. The 
profanation was punished by his instant death, to the great grief of 
David, who named the place Pcrez-uzzah (the breaking-forth on Uzzah)* 
But Uzzah's fate was not merely the penalty of his own rashness. 



THE REIGN OF DAVID 



305 




THE ARK. 



The improper mode of transporting the ark, which ought to have been 
borne on the shoulders of the Levites, was the primary cause of his 
unholy deed ; and David distinctly recognized it as a punishment on 
the people in general, " because we sought Him not after the due 
order." 

The terror of this proof of Jehovah's jealousy stayed further pro- 
gress for the time, and the ark was carried aside to the house of Obed- 
edom, the Gittite. There it remained three months, and brought to 
the family of this Philistine a blessing like that which had long 
crowned the house of Abinadab. 

Meanwhile David prepared for its final transport to Jerusalem with 
a care suitable to the awful lesson he had received. Instead of 
20 



306 HISTORY OJ THE BIBLE. 

removing the old tabernacle, which was doubtless much impaired by 
age, he set up a new tent for it in the city of David. In the first 
procession, the king and his warriors had perhaps held too prominent 
a place, to the injury of the religious solemnity, which was now duly 
preserved. David intrusted the duty of carrying it to those whom 
Jehovah had appointed. He assembled the three families of the house 
of Levi, with the sons of Aaron, and the high-priests of both the 
branches, Zadok, of the house of Eleazar, and Abiathar, of the house 
of Ithamar, and bade them sanctify themselves to bring up the ark of 
God ; and so they carried it on their shoulders after the manner pre- 
scribed by Moses. They were escorted by David and his chosen 
warriors, with the elders of Israel, and the procession started with 
every sign of joy. The first movement was watched with deep anx- 
iety, lest there should still be some fault to provoke God's auger : but 
when the Levites had taken six steps in safety, it was seen that God 
helped them ; and the procession halted, while David sacrificed seven 
bullocks and seven rams. He then took his place before the ark, 
clothed only with the linen ephod of the priestly order, without his 
royal robes, and danced with all his might, playing upon the harp as 
he led the way up to the hill of Zion, amid the songs of the Levites, 
the joyful shouts of all the people, and the noise of cornets, and trum- 
pets, and cymbals, and psalteries, and harps. Having placed it in 
the tabernacle he had prepared, and having offered burnt-offerings and 
peace-offerings, he blessed the people in the name of Jehovah, and 
dealt to each of the multitude, women as well as men, a loaf of bread, 
a large piece of meat, and a flagon of wine, doubtless from the offer- 
ings. He then returned to bless his household ; but his reception cast 
a shade even over this most joyful day of all his reign. His enthusi- 
astic dance before the ark had been observed with scorn by his wife 
Michal from a window of the new palace ; she met him on his return 
with insulting reproaches, to which he made an indignant answ r er; 
and she remained barren to the day of her death. 

In both these ceremonials a prominent feature was the singing the 
praises of Jehovah to the music of various instruments. On the first 
removal of the ark, we are told that " David and all Israel played be- 
fore God with all their might, and with singing, and with harps, psal- 
teries, timbrels, cymbals, and trumpets." On the second occasion 
David made a complete arrangement of the musical service, placing it 
under the direction of the priests, Zadok and Abiathar, and appointing 
the Levites for its performance, with Asaph at their head. The first 
book of Chronicles describes the order of this " service of song," and 



THE REIGN OF DAYID 



3(tt 




THE LAYER. 



preserves the Psalm of thanksgiving which David first delivered into 
the hand of Asaph and his brethren. The comparison of this with 
several in the book of Psalms shows that it is either an outline which 
was afterward expanded into separate poems, or an epitome of the 
Psalms used on the occasion. For there are many Psalms to be re- 
ferred to the removal of the ark to Jerusalem, both on the ground of 
tradition and of their own internal evidence. 

All other arrangements were made by David with equal care foe 
the whole order of divine worship, according to the law of Moses. 
Asaph and his brethren were appointed to minister in the daily ser- 
vice before the ark. The office of chief doorkeeper was committed 
to Obed-edom, in whose house the ark had rested. Zadok and the 
priests were charged with the daily and other sacrifices at the taber- 
nacle, which remained at Gibeon. 

David's zeal for the house of God was still only fulfilled in part. 
His new city was blessed with the symbol of Jehovah's presence, but 
that sacred object had itself no worthy abode. The palace built for 
the king by Hiram's workmen was now finished, and he dwelt in it 
in peace ; but as he sat in it he was troubled with the thought that 
while he dwelt in such a splendid mansion the Ark of the Covenant 
of Jehovah dwelt only in a tent, and he resolved to build a house for 
God to dwell in. He mentioned his intention to the prophet Nathan, 
who commended it ; but that same night the word of God came to 
Nathan telling him to inform David that he was not to build the 
house as the necessities of his wars had made him a man of blood ; 



308 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

but that Jehovah, who had been with him hitherto, would first esta- 
blish his house, and would raise up one of his sons, whose kingdom 
should be established forever, and who should build the house of 
God in the place chosen by himself. This prediction, referring first 
to Solomon, is expressed in terms that could only be fulfilled in the 
Messiah ; and it is clear that David understood it so, from the wonder- 
ful prayer which he poured out before God in thanksgiving for the 
honor put upon him. Similar feelings are uttered in several of the 
" Messianic Psalms," which have therefore been regarded as written 
on the occasion of Nathan's prophecy, such as the 2d, 45th, 22d, 16th, 
118th, and 110th, in all of which the promises of God to David and 
his house are celebrated in that wonderfully expressive language 
which reveals him who was at once David's Son and Lord. 

His own throne, and the service of God's sanctuary, being thus 
established, David advanced to the final subjugation of the enemies 
of Israel. 

I. We have already mentioned the two last invasions of the Philis- 
tines : they were now, in their turn, invaded and subdued by David, 
who took the proud frontier city of Gath, " The bridle of the mother- 
city," with its " daughter towns." Except one or two minor combats, 
we hear of no further trouble from the Philistines during David's 
reign. This conquest secured to Israel its promised boundary on the 
southwest, the " river of Egypt." 

II. Turning to the eastern frontier, David exacted from Moab a 
signal vengeance for all her enmity against Israel down from the 
time of Balak. Two-thirds of the people were put to death, and the 
other third reduced to tribute. David's personal relations to this 
nation, whose blood he shared, had been so friendly that we have seen 
him committing his father and mother to the care of the King of 
Moab. A Jewish tradition says that they were foully murdered. 
There is not a word of this in the Scripture narrative ; but we may 
be quite sure that David's vengeance was provoked by some treacher- 
ous insult, as in the later case of Amraon. Thus was Balaam's 
prophecy fulfilled : — " Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have 
dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of Ar " (the metro- 
polis of Moab). 

III. The eastern frontier being now secured, for Xahash the 
Ammonite was his friend, David advanced to the conquest of the 
promised boundary on the northeast, "the great river Euphrates." 
Two Syrian kingdoms lay between him and his purpose. That of 
Zobah, which has been mentioned more than once before, was then 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 



109 




DAVID'S TOWER AT JERUSALEM. 



governed by Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, whom David defeated, 
taking from him his force of 1000 chariots, 700 horses, and 20,000 
infantry. The chariot-horses were hamstrung, according to the com- 
mand of Moses, but David could not resist the temptation of reserving 
100 chariots as an ornament for his royal state. The Syrians of 
Damascus, coming to the help of Hadadezer, were defeated with the 
loss of 22,000 men ; and that fairest and oldest of the cities of the 
world was made tributary to David, and garrisoned by his troops. 
" Thus did Jehovah preserve David whithersoever he went." 

These victories led to an alliance with Toi, king of 
Hamath (the Ccele-Syria of the Greeks), who sent his 
son Joram to congratulate David on the defeat of Hadadezer, his 
own enemy. This, together with the old friendship of Hiram, king 
of Tyre, secured the northern frontier ; and David returned to Jerusa- 
lem, laden with the golden shields of Hadadezer's body-guard, the 
brass taken from his cities, and the vessels of gold and silver and 
brass which Joram had brought as presents. All these, together with 



b. c. 1040. 



310 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the spoils of Moab and the Philistines, the plunder formerly taken 
from Amalek, and that gained afterward from Edom and the sons of 
Amnion, he dedicated for the service of the future Temple. 

The long conflict of Edom with his brother Israel was now Drought 
to its first decision by a great victory gained by Abishai, the son of 
Zeruiah, in " the valley of Salt " (on the south of the Dead Sea), in 
winch the Edomites lost 18,000 men. David was probably in Syria 
at the time of this battle, which was followed up by a great army 
under Joab, who in six months almost exterminated the male popula- 
tion. David then visited the conquered land, and placed garrisons 
in all the cities. The young king, Hadad, however, escaped to 
Egypt, and became afterward a formidable enemy to Solomon. 

These victories, which David celebrates in the 60th and 110th 
Psalms, carried the southern frontier of Israel to the eastern head of 
the Red Sea ; and from that point to the frontier of Egypt, the Arab 
tribes had felt enough of his power as an exile not to molest him in 
the hour of his triumph. The bounds of the promised land were 
now fully occupied, though not even now so completely as if Israel 
had been faithful from the first. For, besides the scattered remnants 
of the old inhabitants, several of whom (as Ittai the Gittite, Uriah 
the Hittite, and others) were conspicuous among the king's great men ; 
besides that the Philistines and others, who had been devoted to ex- 
termination, were only reduced to tribute; there was one fair province 
unsubdued, the whole coast of Phoenicia, the cities of which flourished 
under their native kings, the chief of whom was David's firm ally. 

These extended limits were only preserved during the reigns of 
David and of Solomon, a period of about sixty years. For that time, 
however, the state formed no longer a petty monarchy, barely holding 
its own among the surrounding nations, as under Saul ; but it was 
truly one of the great Oriental monarchies ; too truly, indeed, for the 
magnificence of Solomon sapped its strength, and prepared its speedy 
dissolution. Meanwhile David's position is thus described by the 
prophet Nathan : — " Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, I took thee from 
the sheepcote, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, 
over Israel : and I was with thee wmithersoever thou wentest, and have 
cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great 
name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth." 
Thus " David reigned overall Israel, and executed judgment and jus- 
tice among all his people." 

The constitution which David established for his kingdom was pre- 
served, in its main forms, to the end of the monarchy. 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 311 

I. The Royal Family. — We have already spoken of David's goodly 
progeny, which well entitled him to the epithet of " patriarch/' The 
princes were under the charge of Jehiel, probably the Levite of that 
name : but, when Solomon was born, he was committed to the care of 
the prophet Nathan. The warm love of David for his sons was 
shown in an indulgence that was the proximate cause of the family 
calamities which were visited on him as a judgment for his one great 
sin. But those dark clouds had not yet gathered ; and he had noth- 
ing to mar his pleasure in his children, two of whom, at least, Absa- 
lom and Adonijah, inherited his beauty. 

II. The Military Organization was based on that of Saul. 

(1.) "The Host" was composed, from the first formation of the 
nation in the desert, of all males capable of bearing arms, w T ho were 
summoned to war by the judges or princes of tribes when the 
necessity arose. Saul formed a chosen band of 3000 as a standing 
army, the nucleus of the whole force, under Abner, as commander- 
in-chief. The same post was held under David by Joab, who won 
it by the capture of the citadel of Jerusalem. He led out the host to 
war when the king did not take the field in person. The standing 
organization was improved under David by the division of the w T hole 
host into twelve bodies of 24,000 each (288,000 in all), whose turn 
of service came every month, and each of which had a commander 
chosen from David's band of mighty men of valor. In accordance 
with the institution prescribed by Moses, the force was entirely of 
infantry : the 100 chariots reserved by David from the Syrians seem to 
have been only for purposes of state. The weapons constantly alluded 
to in the history and the Psalms are spears and shields, swords and 
bows. The use of body armor is mentioned in the story of Goliath. 

(2.) The Body-guard was recruited to so great an extent from 
foreigners (and chiefly Philistines, a practice dating probably from 
David's exile) that the force bore a foreign name, like the Scottish 
archers and the Swiss guards of the French kings and the Pope. At 
least it seems most probable that " Cherethites and Pelethites " are 
proper names, the former of a Philistine tribe, and the latter a form of 
the word Philistines. They are mentioned in close connection with the 
" Gittites," a body of 600 men who came to David from Gath, under 
Ittai ; but these seem only to have joined him on the special occasion 
of his flight from Absalom. The commander of the Cherethites and 
Pelethites was Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest of the line of 
Eleazar. 

(3.) The Heroes, or Mighty Men (Gibborim), were a peculiar and 



312 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 







ALTAR OF BURNT-OFFERIXGS. 

favored body (like the Cent Gardes of Napoleon), composed originally 
of the 600 warriors who joined David in his exile, and afterward 
maintained at the same number. They were formed into three great 
divisions of 200 each, and thirty bands of twenty each, with their 
respective leaders. The captains of twenties formed " the thirty," 
and the commanders of two hundreds "the three," above whom was 
11 the captain of the mighty men." This post was held by Abishai, 
the son of Zeruiah ; but, though first in rank, he was inferior in 
prowess to " the three," who were Jashobeam (or Adino) the Hach- 
monite, Eleazar, son of Dodo the Ahohite, who was with David at 
Ephes-dammim, and Shammah, 6on of Agee the Hararite. We have 
also a list of " the thirty," some of whose names occur also in other 
passages : it opens with the name of Asahel, the brother of Joab, who 
was slain by Abner, and closes with that of Uriah the Hittite, who 
fell by the treachery of David himself. 

III. The Civil Administration was conducted under the eyes of the 
king himself, assisted by a council, of which the chief members were 
Jonathan, the king's nephew, son of his brother Shimeah, who seems 
to have been his chief secretary ; Ahithophel of Gilo, afterward so 
famous as Absalom's adviser ; his rival Hushai the Archite, the king's 
''friend" or "companion;" Jehoiada, the son of Benaiah ; and Zadok 
and Abiathar, the high-priests ; together with Joab, and probably 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 313 

Benaiah, whose military rank gave them, like Abner and David 
under Saul, a high place at the court. Then there were the great 
officers of state, Sheva or Seraiah, the " scribe " or public secretary ; 
Jehoshaphat, the " recorder " or historian ; Adoram ; and Ira, the 
Jairite, who was " a chief ruler about David," with functions proba- 
bly judicial, and the same rank was held by David's sons. The royal 
possessions in the fields, cities, villages, and castles, comprising farms, 
vineyards, olive and other trees, stores of wine and oil, herds of oxen 
and camels, and flocks of sheep, besides treasure, were intrusted to 
officers for each branch, all under a chief treasurer, Azmaveth, the 
son of Adiel. But a place was still found for the patriarchal govern- 
ment of the tribes, whose princes are enumerated ; the prince of Judah 
being, not David himself, but his brother Elihu (doubtless the same 
as Eliab) by the right of primogeniture. 

IV. The Religious Institutions were in part mixed up with the 
constitution of the monarchy itself. Like Saul and some of the 
judges, we see David offering sacrifices — an apparent usurpation of 
the priestly office, to be explained, perhaps, by the patriarchal priest- 
hood, which was vested in the chief of a family, and, therefore, by a 
natural analogy in the chief of the state ; and he even gives the 
priestly benediction. But his peculiar character, as the religious 
head of the state, is seen in his inspiration as a prophet and psalmist. 
" Being a prophet" as St. Peter explicitly declared, he foretold, in 
plainer and more glowing language than any that had yet been used, 
those great events, of which the whole ceremonial of the Jewish 
Church, and even his own kingdom, were but types, " the sufferings 
of Christ, and the glory that should follow." As a prophet too, he 
taught the people those principles of religious and moral truth of 
which the Psalms are full, and which, in the Proverbs, were to a 
great extent learnt by Solomon from him. As " the sweet Psalmist 
of Israel," who said of himself, " The Spirit of Jehovah spoke by me, 
and his word was in my tongue," it was his peculiar honor, not only 
for the Jewish Church, but for the Church Universal to the end of 
time, to direct that part of God's worship which is the best utterance 
of the heart, the tuneful notes of praise, inseparably blended with 
prayer and with the utterance of divine truth. His pre-eminence in 
this respect is unaffected by the doubts about the authorship of many 
of the Psalms. A great truth is expressed by the common title 
which names the whole book " The Psalms of David ;" for he 
founded psalmody as an institution, taught it to Asaph and his imme- 
diate successors, and gave the model which all later psalmists followed. 



314 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




ALTAR OF SACRIFICE. 

While he thus furnished the matter of psalmody, he regulated its 
manner, by arranging for the first time a full choral service. To this 
office David, in conjunction with the chiefs of the Levites, set apart 
three families, one from each of the three houses of the tribe, the 
Gershonites, Kohathites, and Merarites. They were prophets as well 
as singers, "to prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with 
cymbals ;" and they handed down their art from generation to gene- 
ration by a systematic course of instruction, "the teacher as well as 
the scholar." These families were those of Asaph, the son of 
Berechiah the Gershonite, the chief singer, and also distinguished as 
a seer; of Heman the Kohathite, son of Joel, and grandson of the 
prophet Samuel, and himself " the king's seer in the words of God f 
and of Jeduthun (or Ethan), a Merarite, who is also called "the 
king's seer." The names of each of these leaders are found in the 
titles of particular Psalms; and the tripartite division was observed 
till the Captivity, and probably restored after the return. At first 
they were divided between the ark at Jerusalem and the tabernacle 
at Gibeon, the family of Asaph being assigned to the former, and 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 315 

those of Heman and Jeduthun to the latter. The three families 
numbered 288 principal singers, divided by lot into twenty-four 
courses of twelve in each ; but the total of the Levites engaged in 
praising Jehovah "with the instruments which David made" was 
4000. The rest of the Levites, amounting to 34,000, were arranged 
into the three families of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Six thousand 
bore the dignity of officers and judges, 4000 were set apart to the 
humbler office of doorkeepers, and the general service of the sanctu- 
ary, "the work of the house of Jehovah," was committed to the 
remaining 24,000. They were relieved of the hardest part of that 
work, the carrying the tabernacle and its vessels, now that God had 
given rest to his people, to dwell at Jerusalem forever ; and as the 
offices which remained, though numerous, were comparatively light, 
David assigned them to the Levites above twenty years, though the 
census was still taken according to the ancient standard of thirty and 
upward. Their offices were to wait on the priests for the service of 
the house of Jehovah, purifying the holy place and the holy things, 
preparing the shew-bread and the meat-offerings, praising God at the 
morning and evening service, and assisting in offering the burnt 
sacrifices on the Sabbaths and the stated feasts. 

For the higher duties allotted by the law of Moses to the priest- 
hood, the sons of Aaron were arranged according to the two houses 
of Eleazar and Ithamar; his two elder sons, Nadab and Abihu, 
having died childless for their profanity. We have seen that Eleazar 
succeeded his father as high-priest ; but it is clear that the head of 
the house of Ithamar was in some sense co-heir to the office. In the 
person and family of Eli this state of things was reversed : the high- 
priesthood was vested in the house of Ithamar ; while that of Eleazar 
did not abdicate its claims. So, under David, we find both Zadok 
and Abiathar recognized as priests, the former being named first, by 
the right of primogeniture, while the latter actually held the office 
of high-priest. This double priesthood was in fact connected with a 
twofold service ; Zadok ministering at the old tabernacle in Gibeon, 
and Abiathar before the ark at Jerusalem. By the census taken 
toward the close of David's reign, it appeared that the families of 
the house of Eleazar were twice as many as those of the house of 
Ithamar, there being sixteen of the former and eight of the latter. 
The twenty-four chiefs of these families were made the heads of 
twenty-four "courses," who were arranged in order by lot for the 
performance of the services of the sanctuary, and named ever after- 
ward from their present chiefs. The courses were as follows : — 



316 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




ANCIENT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



1. Jehoiarib. 

2. Jedaiah. 

3. Harim. 

4. Seorim. 

5. Malcbijab. 

6. Mijamin. 



7. Hakkoz. 

8. Abijah. 

9. Jeshuah. 

10. Shecaniab. 

11. Eliashib. 

12. Jakim. 



13. Huppoh. 

14. Jesbebeah. 

15. Bilgab. 

16. Immer. 

17. Hezir. 

18. Apbses. 



19. Pethahiab. 

20. Jebezekel. 

21. Jacbin. 

22. Gamul. 

23. Delaiab. 

24. Mabaziab. 



To the eighth course (that of Abijah, or Abia) belonged Zacharias, 
the father of John the Baptist. The term for which each course was 
on duty is not expressly stated ; but from the analogy of the service 
of the porters, and from the testimony of the Jewish writers, it seems 
to have been weekly, beginning on the Sabbath, the services of the 
week being arranged among the members of the course by lot. The 
twenty-four courses of singers were associated respectively with those 
of the priests. 

These arrangements formed the model of the Temple service under 
Solomon, except that the separate worship of Gibeon was discontinued ; 
and the house of Ithamar was finally excluded from the high-priesthood 
by the deposition of Abiathar. 

Lastly, a special intercourse was maintained by David with Jehovah 
through the prophets ; first, Samuel, who anointed him, and afterward 
protected him at Ramah ; next Gad, who joined him in his exile ; 
and lastly, Nathan, the counsellor of his throne, and faithful reprover 
of his grievous sins. 

Thus established in his kingdom, David had no further fear of 
rivalry from the house of Saul, and he was anxious to find an oppor- 
tunity of performing his covenant with Jonathan. He learnt from 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 31? 

Ziba, who had been one of Saul's courtiers, that Mephibosheth, the 
lame son of Jonathan, was living in the house of Machir at Lo-debar ; 
and, having sent for him, he restored to him all the land of Saul and 
his family. Committing the charge of this property to Ziba, David 
retained Mephibosheth at Jerusalem, and gave him a place at the 
royal table, like his own sons. We do not know how long afterward, 
but probably earlier than it stands in the order of the narrative, the 
king protected Mephibosheth from a great danger. The land was 
visited with a famine for three years ; the cause of which was declared 
by the oracle of Jehovah to be " for Saul and for his bloody house, be- 
cause he slew the Gibeonites." This massacre in shameful violation 
of the oath of Joshua and the elders of Israel, was one of those acts 
of passionate zeal in which Saul tried to drown the remorse of his 
later years. In reply to David's offer of satisfaction, the Gibeonites 
demanded the lives of seven of Saul's sons ; and the king gave up to 
them the two sons of Saul by his concubine Rizpah, and the five sons 
that Michal had borne to Adriel, to whom she was married when 
Saul took her from David. These seven were hanged by the Gibeon- 
ites on the hill of Gibeah, Saul's own city. They hung there from the 
beginning of barley harvest till the rains set in, though the law pro- 
vided that, in such cases, the bodies should be buried by sunset. But 
Rizpah took her station upon the rock, with only a covering of sack- 
cloth, to keep the bodies from the birds of prey by day and from the 
wild beasts by night, till the rain began to fall. Touched with her 
devotion, David caused their remains to be taken down and interred 
in the sepulchre of Kish at Zelah, together with the bones of Saul and 
Jonathan, which he transported from Jabesh-gilead. Mephibosheth, 
the son of Jonathan, whom David had refused to give up to the Gib- 
eonites, was now the sole survivor of the house of Saul, with his infant 
son Micah, through whom the family was continued to the latest 
period of the nation's history. We hear of him again before the end 
of David's reign. 

It has been observed that this famine was the first of those three 
great adversities of David's reign which are described in the alternative 
proposed by the prophet Nathan : a three years' famine, a three 
months' flight, or a three days' pestilence ; when David, having had 
bitter experience of the first two, chose the third, as a dispensation 
direct from God. 

This first period of David's reign is marked by another 
b. c. 1036. . . . . 

great success in war, and, in connection therewith, by the 

fall which embittered the rest of his life, and which, as the prophet 



*i8 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

declared at the time, has ever since "given great occasion to the 
enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme." Nahash, king of the children 
of Ammon, who had been David's ally, and some suppose his relation, 
died, leaving the throne to his son Hanun. David sent an embassy 
of condolence and friendship to the new king; but Hanun, persuaded 
by his counsellors that the ambassadors only came as spies, sent them 
back with shameful personal insults. In anticipation of David's ven- 
geance, the Ammonite obtained help from the Syrians of Beth-rehob, 
Zobah, Maacah, and Ish-tob, who joined him with 33,000 men. On 
the other side, Joab took the field, with all the host of Israel. A de- 
cisive battle was fought before Rabbah, the capital of Ammon. 
While the Israelites had followed the Beni-ammi up to the gates, the 
Syrian allies had enclosed them in the rear. Joab took front against 
the Syrians, with all the chosen warriors of Israel, leaving the rest 
under Abishai to make head against the Beni-ammi. The Syrians 
were routed, and the Ammonites then fled, and shut themselves up in 
their city, while Joab returned to Jerusalem. The defeated Syrians 
formed a grand confederacy under Hadarezer, with their brethren 
beyond the Euphrates ; but David crossed the Jordan with the Avhole 
force of Israel, and defeated them in a pitched battle, in which they 
lost 7000 charioteers, 40,000 infantry, and their captain, Shophach. 
The Syrians became tributary to David, and abandoned the cause of 
Ammon. 

The next year, at the return of the campaigning season, Joab again 
took the field, and ravaged the lands of the Beni-ammi, and shut them 
up in Rabbah, their chief city, and a strongly fortified place. David 
remained at Jerusalem ; and if this inaction arose from a growing 
inclination to a luxurious enjoyment of his royal estate, his self-indul- 
gence led him into a terrible temptation and wrought his fall. In the 
restlessness which follows a day of such indolence, he rose one evening 
from his bed to enjoy a walk upon the roof of his lofty palace of cedar, 
which overlooked the women's court of a neighboring house; and 
there he saw a fair woman in her bath, and became at once enamored. 
On inquiry, he found that she was Bathsheba (or Bathshua), the 
daughter of Eliam (or Ammiel), son of his counsellor, Ahithophel, and 
the wife of one of his " thirty mighty men," Uriah the Hittite, who 
was then fighting the king's battles under Joab. Such a discovery 
might have checked the passion even of a heathen despot, but David 
fell ; and, when the consequence of his crime exposed himself to dis- 
covery and Bathsheba to a shameful death, the king, after a vain 
attempt to conceal his guilt, which only showed more of the noble 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 319 

nature of the man he had outraged, added treacherous murder to his 
adultery. He made Uriah the bearer of his own death-warrant to 
Joab, who exposed the brave man to a sally from the best warriors of 
the Ammonites, and he fell in happy ignorance of his sovereign's guilt 
and his own wrongs. The artifice was kept up by a message from 
Joab to the king, excusing the apparent rashness of his attack by the 
significant conclusion, " Thy servant, Uriah the Hittite is dead also," 
and the messenger was sent back to comfort Joab with a cold-blooded 
allusion to the fortune of war. After the customary mourning for her 
husband, Bathsheba, who seems throughout to have consented to the 
sin, was taken to the house of David, and became his wife, and soon 
afterward bore him a son. 

Thus far man's share in this drama of lust and blood. 
But now another voice is heard : " The thing that 
David had done displeased Jehovah." He sent the prophet 
Nathan to the king with that well-known parable of the rich man, 
who spared his own abundant flocks and herds, and seized for his 
guest the one ewe-lamb of the poor man, his darling and his chil- 
dren's pet. Our surprise that David's conscience was not at once 
awakened may yield to the consideration that his heart was not yet 
hardened in guilt, so that his natural sense of justice broke forth in 
the indignant sentence, "As Jehovah liveth, the man that hath done 
this thing is a son of death ;" and he was going on to describe the 
restitution he would exact, when the lips of Nathan uttered those 
words, which have from that day been echoed by every sinner's 
awakened conscience, l( Thou art the Man ! " Then the prophet 
pronounced the sentence of the King of kings on him who had just 
been sentencing the unknown culprit. Reproaching David with his 
ingratitude for all that Jehovah had done and would yet have done 
for him, he denounced the appropriate punishment; that, as his 
sword had broken up the house of Uriah, the sword should never 
depart from his own house ; and that, as he had outraged the sancti- 
ties of domestic life, his own should be likewise outraged, but with 
the difference which God always makes between the secret sin and 
the public punishment : " For thou didst it secretly, but I will do 
this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." Then follow the 
few simple words of repentance and forgiveness : "And David said 
unto Nathan, I have sinned against Jehovah. And Nathan said 
unto David, Jehovah also hath put away thy sin ; thou shalt not 
die." But the path of repentance, however plain, is a " strait and 
narrow way," and how David " agonized " to enter into it, we may 



320 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

read in the 51st Psalm. In the bitterness of his anguish, as 
well as in the fulness of his pardon, David once more appears as the 
type of the sinning, suffering, repenting, and forgiven man, who has 
ever since found in that one psalm the perfect utterance of his deepest 
feelings. But even the "godly sorrow which worketh repentance 
unto life/' does not avert the temporal consequences of sin, whether 
in the form of its natural fruits or of special judgments. And so 
Nathan not only does not recall the woes denounced on David's house, 
which were in part the natural consequence of his polygamy, and of 
that weak parental indulgence which has been the besetting sin of 
many a great man, but he goes on to declare a special punishment for 
that consequence of David's sin which we still see in action : " Be- 
cause by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of 
Jehovah to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall 
surely die." And now David was called to prove the sincerity of 
his repentance by his submission to the punishment which began to 
work. No sooner had Nathan gone home, than God struck the new- 
born child with a mortal sickness ; and David prayed and fasted, and 
lay all night on the ground, refusing all comfort from his attendants. 
On the seventh day David learnt the child's death from the whisper- 
ings of the courtiers, who feared to crush him with the news. To 
their great surprise, he put off all signs of mourning, went to worship 
in the house of God, and then sat down to eat ; explaining to his 
attendants that, while there remained any hope of the child's life, he 
fasted and wept in the forlorn hope that God might yet grant him its 
life; but now mourning could not bring it back from the dead ; and 
he added those memorable words, which we cannot but understand 
as expressing the higher hopes, with which they have so often been 
echoed by bereaved Christian parents : " / shall go to him ; but he 
shall not return to me." And " God, who comforteth them that are 
cast down," ordained that his relation to Bathsheba should be the 
source not only of comfort to David himself, but of glory to his 
kingdom, and of blessing to all generations of mankind, by the birth 
of a son, whom he named Solomon, in memory of the peace which 
was established at the same time, and whom, at the command of 
Nathan, he also named Jedidiah (beloved of Jehovah), in token of 
the special favor which God showed him from his birth. He became 
the successor of David, and the progenitor of the Messiah, of whose 
kingdom, as " the Prince of Peace," his peaceful reign was a con- 
spicuous type. 

The peace, which the name of Solomon commemorates, had been 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 



LI21 




THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. 






established by the final conquest of the Ammonites. Joab, having 
reduced Kabbah to the last extremities by taking the lower city, with 
its waters, reserved the honor of the victory for David, who marched 
out at the head of all Israel and took the city. He placed on his 
own head the sacred crown, called the "crown of Milcolm (or 
Moloch)," weighing a talent of gold, and set with precious stones, 
and added the spoil of the city to the treasures prepared for the house 
of God. The long resistance of the city, and the insult which had 
provoked the war, were punished by a cruel massacre, in which all 
21 



b. c. 1030 



322 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the cities of the Beni-ammi were involved. " David brought out 
the people, and put them under (or, cut them with) saws, and har- 
rows of iron, and axes, and made them pass through the brick-kiln," 
the fire, perhaps, through which their children passed " to their 
grim idol." 

The triumphant return of David and his army to Jerusalem 
concludes the first period of his reign, the glory of which is over- 
shadowed by that great sin, the punishment of which was to render 
its second part so disastrous. 

Before his marriage with Bathsheba, David had sixteen 
sons, who lived as princes among the people, each in his 
own house. Only three of them are of any note in history : the 
eldest, Amnon, son of Ahinoam of Jezreel ; the third, Absalom, son 
of Maacah of Geshur; and the fourth, Adoxijah, son of Haggith. 
For the precedence due to Amnon as the first-born he was likely to 
have a formidable rival in Absalom, whose mother was a king's 
daughter, and who was himself unequalled for beauty among the 
people. But we do not hear of any jealousy or dissension among the 
king's sons till the following occasion led to fatal results. Absalom 
had a sister named Tamar, who shared his beauty, and of whom 
Amnon became so violently enamored that he fell sick. Marriage 
with a half-sister was forbidden by the Mosaic law, though Tamar, 
in pleading with Amnon, suggested that David might have con- 
sented to that alternative to avoid the crime which Amnon effected 
by a base stratagem. Amnon incurred the anger of David, who 
probably spared his life because he was his first-born, and the hatred 
of Absalom, who waited in silence an opportunity for revenge. When 
two years had thus passed, Absalom invited the king with all his 
sons, and Amnon in particular, to a sheep-shearing feast at Baal- 
hazor, on the border of Ephraim. David seems to have had 
suspicions, even after such an interval of time ; but in the end he 
consented to his son's going, though he himself remained at home. 
Amid the mirth of the feast, Absalom's servants, having received 
their orders beforehand, slew Amnon when he was merry with wine. 
The king's sons fled, preceded by the rumor that they were all slain ; 
but they soon arrived, weeping for Amnon, when the king and all 
his servants joined them in their mourning. Absalom fled to his 
grandfather, Talmai, king of Geshur, and remained there three years; 
while David, comforted for the irrecoverable fate of Amnon, grieved 
for the loss of his living son. 

To end this state of things, Joab employed a " wise woman " of 



THE REIGN OF DAVID 



!23 



Tekoah (afterward tlie birthplace of the prophet Amos), who appeared 
before the king in mourning, with a fictitious tale similar to the case 
of his own family. One of her two sons, she said, had slain the other 
in a quarrel, and all the family demanded the death of the homicide, 
which would leave her childless, and cut off her husband's name. 
When the king promised her protection, she applied the parable to 
him, and reproved him because he did not " fetch home again his 
banished." She enforced her request by the oft-quoted proverb, 
" We must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which can- 
not be gathered up again/' and pleaded that God, in sparing the 
young man's life, had given the means for his recall. Learning from 
the woman by whom she had been prompted, David sent for Joab, 
and bade him bring back Absalom, whom however the king refused 
to see. Absalom dwelt for two years in his house at Jerusalem with 
his three sons, and his 
beautiful daughter 
Tamar, gaining favor 
with the people by his 
handsome person. There 
can be no doubt that he 
was already meditating, 
perhaps not the dethrone- 
ment of his father, but 
his own association in the 
kingdom as his heir. At 
length, impatient of his 
exclusion from the court, 

he sent for Joab, who was too cautious to go to him ; upon which 
Absalom compelled him to come by setting fire to one of his fields of 
standing corn. Joab interceded with the king, who received his son 
and gave him the kiss of peace. We may suppose that the interview 
put an end to Absalom's hopes of sharing his father's throne, for he 
now began to prepare for rebellion. He surrounded himself with a 
body of fifty foot-runners, besides chariots and horsemen; and, taking 
his station beside the city gate, he met the suitors who came to the 
king with expressions of his regret that their causes were neglected, 
and with the wish that he were judge over the land, to give them re- 
dress, while every reverence made to him was returned with an em- 
brace. " So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel." This 
may partly be accounted for by the common love of change, and im- 
patience at long-continued prosperity ; but, besides this, Absalom's 




DAVID PARDONS ABSALOM. 



824 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

unchecked proceedings prove that David was not living as of old in 
sight of the people — a certain cause of loss of popularity ; the affair of 
Bathsheba, though only known in part, and his treatment of Absalom, 
may have bred discontent ; and it has been conjectured, from the 
choice of Hebron as the head-quarters of the rebellion, that the men 
of Judah were offended at finding themselves merged with the other 
tribes. Absalom's chief captain and chief counsellor, Amasa and 
Ahithophel, were of that tribe, and there are symptoms of discord 
between Judah and the other tribes at the time of the king's return. 

When the plot was ripe, Absalom obtained leave from the king to 
go to Hebron, the ancient sanctuary of his tribe, to pay a vow which 
he had made at Geshur in case he should return to Jerusalem. He 
took with him 200 men, not yet privy to his design, and sent round 
secret messengers to all the tribes, warning the adherents whom we 
have seen him gaining at Jerusalem that the trumpet would give the 
signal of his having been proclaimed king at Hebron. But perhaps 
his most prudent step was his sending for Ahithophel, David's most 
able counsellor, from his own city of Giloh. It is natural to suppose 
that Ahithophel had resented David's conduct to his grand-daughter 
Bathsheba ; and his absence from Jerusalem, to sacrifice at his own 
city, may have been but a preparation for joining Absalom. 

The first news of the conspiracy reached David as 
tidings of its success. He at once resolved to fly from 
Jerusalem, lest the city should be stormed, and his servants consented. 
His departure from Jerusalem is related with a minuteness to which 
we have no parallel in the Scripture history of any single day, except 
that of which this was the type, when the Son of David, betrayed by 
" his own familiar friend," and rejected by his own people, went out 
by the same path " bearing his reproach." It was early in the morn- 
ing when the king, leaving his palace in the care of his ten concubines, 
went forth by the eastern gate with all his household and a crowd of 
people ; for there were still many who showed him the deepest attach- 
ment. Among his faithful guard of Cherethites and Pelethites, and 
. his chosen heroes, the 600 who had followed him ever since his resi- 
dence at Gath, was Ittai the Gittite. David released him and his 
countrymen from their allegiance ; but Ittai vowed that he would fol- 
low the king in life or death, and David bade him lead the way. 
They passed over the brook Kidron (the Cedron of the New Testa- 
ment), by the way that led over the Mount of Olives to Jericho and 
the wilderness, while "all the country wept with a loud voiV<\" As 
David halted in the valley to let the poople pass on, he was joined by 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 325 

Zadok and Abiathar, with all the Levites, bringing with them the 
ark of God. With self-renouncing reverence, David refused to have 
the ark removed, for his sake, from the sanctuary where he had fixed 
its abode, and exposed to share his perils. If Jehovah willed to show 
him favor, he would bring him back to see both the ark and his 
habitation ; if not — " Behold here am I ! let him do to me as seemeth 
good to him !" He reminded the priests that they could do him 
effectual service in the city by employing their two sons, who were 
both swift runners, to bring him tidings, and so he sent them back 
with the ark. The weeping troop then ascended the Mount of Olives 
in the garb of the deepest mourning, the king himself walking bare- 
foot; and just as the grief reached its height, at the last view of the 
towers of Jerusalem, word was brought to David that Ahithophel was 
among the conspirators. He had scarcely uttered the prayer that 
God would turn the wise counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness, when 
the means of its fulfilment was presented. At the summit of the 
mount, he was met by his other counsellor and chosen "friend/ 7 
Hushai the Archite, in the garb of mourning. David bade him to 
return into the city and offer his services to Absalom, in order to 
defeat the counsel of Ahithophel, and to place himself in communica- 
tion with Zadok and Abiathar, whose sons would bring his messages 
to the king. Hushai returned to Jerusalem just as Absalom was 
entering the city, and was received by him with taunts for his deser- 
tion of his " friend/ 7 which must have confirmed him in his purpose, 
though he answered them with professions of fidelity to his new mas- 
ter as the chosen of Jehovah and of Israel. 

Meanwhile, just at the height of noon, David passed over the brow 
of the hill into the territory of Benjamin, where he found himself 
among the friends of Saul. One of these, Ziba, the servant of 
Mephibosheth, met David, with two asses laden with refreshments, 
and by an artful story of his master's treason, obtained a gift of all 
his property. The other member of the house of Saul, Shimei, the 
son of Gera, a native of Bahurim, came out from that village as David 
passed by, and pelted him and his retinue with stones, cursing him 
as the bloody murderer of Saul's house. Abishai would have avenged 
the insult; but the king, with an outburst of impatience at the over- 
bearing sons of Zeruiah, let him curse on, as the messenger of the 
curse of God — a submission which seems to express the voice of 
David's conscience for the murder of Uriah. And what was there, 
he asked, so strange in the curses of a Benjamitc when his oavu son 
sought his life? Uttering a hope that Jehovah would requite him 



326 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

good for this cursing, he suffered the man to continue his insults down 
the hill-side. At the close of the day he reached the Jordan, and 
rested at its fords, the place he had appointed with the priests. Here 
they were roused at midnight by Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, and 
Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, who had narrowly escaped with their 
lives, bringing a warning to cross the river the same night. 

For the day had been a busy one at Jerusalem. Absalom had no 
sooner entered the city than, by the advice of Ahithophel — who acted 
on the favorite maxim of conspirators, to commit their party by some 
unpardonable crime — he perpetrated the outrage which had been fore- 
told by the prophet Xathan. Ahithophel's next advice proved the 
sagacity for which he was unrivalled. He proposed to pursue David 
with 12,000 chosen men, and to fall upon him when weary and dis- 
pirited : his followers would be sure to fly, the king's life only should 
be sacrificed, and the rest would return and dwell in peace. Absalom 
and the elders of Israel did not shrink from the atrocity of the scheme, 
but it was thought better first to consult Hushai. With consummate 
art, he inspired Absalom with the fear that David had chosen some 
hiding-place, where he and his men of war would be found chafing 
like a bear robbed of her whelps ; and the first pursuers would cer- 
tainly be smitten with an overthrow which would cause a panic through 
all the land. Let Absalom rather gather the whole multitude of Israel 
from Dan to Beersheba, and take the field in person, with the certainty 
of falling upon David as the dew covers all the ground ; or, if he had 
taken refuge in a city, the force of Israel would drag it bodily with 
ropes into the river. The result was that which is usual with councils 
of war. The more daring plan, and the first thoughts, which are gene- 
rally best, were abandoned for the " safer " course : " For Jehovah had 
appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that 
Jehovah might bring evil upon Absalom." 

Before, however, this decision was fully taken, Hushai advised the 
priests to send David warning of the plan of Ahithophel. On receiv- 
ing it. as we have seen, David crossed the Jordan, with all his people, 
before the morning, and took up his abode at Mahanaim, the very 
place which had been the capital of his rival, Ish-bosheth, while he 
himself reigned at Hebron. Here he was visited by Shobi, the son 
of Xahash, whom David had no doubt set up as a vassal king of 
Amnion, in place of his brother Hanem, and by Machir, the former 
protector of Mephibosheth, and by Barzillai the Gileadite, of Rogelira, 
whose touching farewell is recorded later. These faithful friends 
brought him all the supplies needful for the rest and refreshment of 
his exhausted follower.-. 



THE REIGX OF DAVID. 



32T 




TOMB OF ABSALOM IN THE VALLEY OF JEHOSIIAPHAT. 

Meanwhile Hushai was without a rival at the court of Absalom. 
Ahithophel was so mortified at the rejection of his advice, and so con- 
vinced of the consequent ruin of Absalom's party, that he took his 
departure to his native city ; and, having set his house in order, he 
hanged himself, and was buried in the sepulchre of his fathers. His 
name has passed into a byword for the truth that" God takoth the 
wise in his own craftiness;" and his unscrupulous treason forbids all 
sympathy with his fate. Absalom assumed the royal state, and was 
solemnly anointed as king. Joab's office of captain of the host was 
conferred by him upon Amasa, the son of Ithra by Abigail, the 



328 



HISTORY- OF THE BIBLE. 



daughter of Nahash, step-daughter to Jesse, and sister to Zeruiah : he 
was half-cousin to David, and own cousin to Joab and Abishai. Ab- 
salom then crossed the Jordan in pursuit of David, and pitched his 
camp in Mount Gilead. 

David prepared to receive the attack with his usual 
skill. He divided his forces into three bodies, under 
Joab, Abishai, and Ittai ; and yielding to the people's entreaties, he 
himself remained to hold out the city in case of a defeat. Confident, 
however, in his tried veterans, and still more in the help of God, he 
was chiefly solicitous for the safety of his rebellious son. " Deal 
gently, for my sake, with the young man, even with Absalom," was 
his charge to the captains in the hearing of all the people, as he sat 
in the gate to see them march out to the battle. The armies met in 
" the forest of Ephraim," in Mount Gilead, where the entangled 

ground was most unfavor- 
able to the untrained 
hosts of Absalom. They 
were overthrown with a 
slaughter of 20,000 men, 
more of whom perished 
t in the defiles of the forest 
than in the battle itself; 
if that might be called a 
^ battle, which consisted in 
a number of partial com- 
^^> : bats spread over the face 
of the country. Amid 
this scattered fight, Absa- 
lom was separated from 
his men ; and as he fled from a party of the enemy, the mule on 
which he rode carried him beneath the low branches of a spreading 
terebinth, and left him hanging by the luxuriant hair which formed 
his pride. The first soldier who came up spared his life, because of 
the king's command, and went to tell Joab. The unscrupulous chief 
hurried to the spot, and thrust three javelins into Absalom's heart, 
while his ten armor-bearers joined in dispatching him. Having 
sounded the trumpet of recall, Joab took down the body and cast it 
into a pit, over which the people raised a great heap of stones, as a 
mark of execration ; a burial which the historian contrasts with the 
splendid monument which Absalom had prepared for himself in 
Shavch, or the " King's Dale." 




DEATH OF ABSALOM. 




s 

M 

H 
o 

p 

k-t 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 329 

David waited at Mahanairu with an impatience which his know- 
ledge of Joab must have rendered doubly painful. Joab's manner 
of sending the message has been explained from a desire, Avhich even 
he felt, to spare the feelings of Ahimaaz, the young friend and 
messenger of the king. Bidding him wait till the morrow, Joab 
sent a Cushite follower of his own unknown to the court, with no 
other orders than to tell what he had seen. The blunt soldier, con- 
scious of having done the king good service even by his disobedience, 
makes no attempt to break the news. But Ahimaaz was more con- 
siderate. Having prevailed on Joab to let him run after the Cushite, 
he outstripped him by his better knowledge of the ground. David 
was sitting in the gateway of Mahanaim, when the watchman on the 
tower above announced first one, and then a second runner. He 
presently recognized Ahimaaz by his style of running, and David felt 
sure that his favorite messenger must bring good tidings. And so at 
first it seemed ; for he offered his breathless congratulations on the 
king's deliverance from his enemies. But the eager question, " Is 
the young man Absalom safe ? " was evaded by the mention of some 
strange confusion that prevailed when the runner left. Before the 
king had time to ascertain his meaning, the Cushite entered with his 
news of the victory. The inquiry about Absalom was repeated, and 
called forth the answer, " The enemies of my lord the king, and all 
that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man ! " Then 
burst the floodgates of a father's heart. No scene in all history 
appeals to deeper feelings, and none is related in such simple and 
pathetic words as this : — "And the king was much moved, and went 
up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he 
said, O my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! would God I 
had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son ! " 

The king's grief turned the victory into mourning, and the people 
stole back into the city like the remnants of a defeated army. David 
shut himself up, repeating the same mournful cry. The hand that 
had struck the blow roused him from his grief. Joab went into his 
presence, and upbraided him with lamenting for his enemies, instead 
of encouraging his friends, who would soon be driven away by his 
neglect. Most had already dispersed to their tents, but they returned 
on hearing that David had resumed his post at the gate of Mahanaim. 
Confusion prevailed throughout the tribes. They remembered that 
it was David who had delivered them from the Philistines ; and, now 
that Absalom, their anointed king, was dead, they asked each other, 
" Why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back?" At this 



330 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

crisis David sent for the priests, Zadok and Abiatliar. Through 
them he appealed to the tribe of Judah, as his brethren, while he 
promised to make Amasa captain of the host in the place of Joab. 
The tribe, thus gained over as one man, invited him to cross the 
Jordan, and met him at the ancient camp of Gilgal. David's tri- 
umphant return is related as fully as his sad departure. With the 
men of Judah came a thousand Benjamites under Shimei, who was 
eager to make his peace with his insulted king; and Ziba, with his 
fifteen sons and twenty servants, crossed the river to anticipate his 
master's claim for restitution. The ferry-boat, which carried over 
the king and his household, had scarcely touched tjie shore, when 
Shimei fell down before him to confess his guilt and entreat pardon, 
which was granted, with another impatient rebuke of Abishai's re- 
monstrances. The clemency, which David deemed becoming to the 
hour of victory, was sound policy toward Benjamin. He swore to 
preserve Shimei's life, but he kept a close watch on a man who had 
proved so dangerous, and warned Solomon against him on his death- 
bed; and Shimei justified David's distrust and provoked his own fate, 
by a new act of disobedience. 

David was next met by Mephibosheth, whose supposed ingratitude 
was only noticed by a gentle rebuke. Mephibosheth, however, had 
a different tale to tell from that of Ziba, whom he accused of having 
compelled him to remain at Jerusalem while he went to slander him 
to the king. But he submitted all to David's disposal, since his life 
had been spared, when all Saul's family were but dead men ; and 
now he had come to meet the king in the deep mourning which he 
had worn since his departure. Ziba seems not to have denied the 
truth of Mephibosheth's statement; but David, weary of the case, 
and unwilling to leave any one discontented on that joyful day, 
divided the property between Ziba and Mephibosheth, who thus 
received half when he thought he had lost the whole. 

The most affecting incident of the day was the farewell of Bar- 
zillai, the wealthy Gileadite, who had supplied David's wants while 
he was at Mahanaim. He accompanied David over the Jordan, and 
the king invited him to Jerusalem that he might return his hos- 
pitality. " How long have I to live?" asked Barzillai, who had 
reached his eightieth year, " that I should go up with the king to 
Jerusalem?" Contenting himself with escorting David a little 
beyond the Jordan, he left his son Chimham to receive the favors 
which he himself was too old to enjoy; and one of David's last acts 
was to commend the family to the generosity of Solomon. 




c 

H 

P 
P3 



331 



332 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The joy of the king's return was disturbed by the angry jealousy of 
the rest of Israel against Judah for beginning the movement without 
them. The fierce tone of Judah seems to have provoked the old ani- 
mosity of Benjamin ; and Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Ben- 
b. c. 1022 . . . . 

jarnite, proclaiming that the tribes had no interest in the 

house of Jesse, blew the trumpet of revolt, and raised the cry, " Every 
man to his tents, O Israel ! " The king, who had now returned to 
Jerusalem, ordered his new captain, Amasa, to muster the forces of 
Judah in three days, that the rebellion might be crushed while it was 
confined to Benjamin. Amasa's slowness compelled David to have 
recourse again to the sons of Zeruiah, and Abishai led forth the body- 
guard of Cherethites and Pelethites and the heroes, accompanied by 
Joab. Gibeon once more became the scene of battle. They found 
Amasa .there before them with the main army, and under the show of 
an embrace, Joab dealt his favored rival one fatal blow, and then 
pressed on the pursuit after Sheba with his brother Abishai. One of 
Joab's followers stood over Amasa as he lay wallowing in his blood 
on the highway, bidding all the friends of Joab and of David to go 
forward ; but, when he saw their hesitation, he carried the corpse aside 
into a field, and covered it with a mantle, and so the pursuit went on. 
Sheba fled northward, raising the tribes of Israel on his way, to Abel- 
beth-maachah, near the sources of the Jordan, a a city and metropolis 
in Israel." The forces of Sheba seem to have melted away before 
Joab's hot pursuit, and he was besieged in Abel. This city was pro- 
verbial for the oracular wisdom of its inhabitants ; and " a wise 
woman" tiow saved it by first learning Joab's demands in a parley, 
and then inducing the people to comply with them by throwing the 
head of Sheba over the wall. The suppression of this rebellion closes 
the second period of David's reign. Its remaining part was only dis- 
turbed by a war with the Philistines at Gezer, the date of which is 
unknown, and in which several of David's heroes signalized their in- 
dividual strength and prowess. 

To this epoch ought probably be referred the remarkable Psalm, 
which is recorded in the second book of Samuel, as "a song spoken by 
David to Jehovah in the day that Jehovah delivered him out of the 
hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul." It stands in 
the book of Psalms as the eighteenth, with the description of David 
in the title as " the servant of Jehovah ;" words no doubt intended to 
ascribe to him all David's glories. Needless difficulty has been felt 
about the mention of Saul in the title, which even recent events might 
have suggested, as Sheba's rebellion was the dying effort of Saul's 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 333 

party ; but, what is more natural than that, in thanking God for de- 
liverance from all his enemies, David should lay the greatest emphasis 
on the earliest and the most dangerous of them all ? 

David's life, in the very character of its separate parts, is typical of 
that whole course of experience which is seen in the men who best re- 
present humanity: a youth of promise, a manhood of conflict, trouble, 
and temptation, not free from falls, and a serene old age. The work 
which was properly his own was now done, and the third and closing 
period of his reign was occupied in preparing for the culminating 
glories of the earthly kingdom of Israel under his successor. But the 
parallel would scarcely have been true, had the evening of his life 
been perfectly unclouded. As has been remarked before, the three 
periods of his reign were stamped each with a great external calamity, 
the lesson of which God made plainer by the numerical parallel ; three 
years of famine, to avenge the cruelties of Saul, three months of flight 
before rebellious Absalom, and now three days of pestilence, a form of 
judgment analogous to the offence that called it down. 

" Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number the 
people." That this was no ordinary census, is clear not only from 
the punishment that followed it, but from the remonstrances of Joab, 
to whom the business was intrusted, and to whom it was so " abomin- 
able" that he omitted the tribes of Levi and Benjamin altogether. 
By David's own desire, all under twenty were omitted, " because Je- 
hovah had said that, he would increase Israel like to the stars of the 
heavens." And that some distrust of this truth was at the root of 
David's sin, is implied in the terms of Joab's remonstrance. The 
transaction seems to have sprung from a self-confident desire to con- 
solidate the forces of the kingdom, to exult in their greatness, and to 
hold them in the readiness of a full military organization for new en- 
terprises. Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that some specific conquest 
was meditated beyond the limits of the promised land. And so God 
sent a punishment which showed how easily he who had promised 
that Israel should be increased like the stars of heaven and the sand 
by the sea-shore, and who could have added unto the people, how 
many soever they might be, a hundred -fold, could cut down their 
numbers at a stroke. v 

Early in the morning after the work was finished, the 

prophet Gad was sent to David, whose conscience had 

already prepared him for the visit, to offer the choice of three modes 

of decimating the people, a three years' famine, a three months' flight 

before his enemies, or a three days' pestilence. The king, who had 



334 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

experienced the two former calamities, now chose the latter with pious 
resignation, saying, "Let us fall now into the hand of Jehovah; for 
his mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man/' The 
pestilence raged for the appointed time, and 70,000 of the people died, 
from Dan to Beersheba. Its cessation was a turning-point in the 
history of the nation. The breaking out of the plague in Jerusalem 
itself was accompanied by the awful appearance of an angel hovering 
in the air just outside of the wall, and stretching out a drawn sword 
toward the city. At this sight, David cried to Jehovah, praying that 
he would let the punishment fall on him and his house, " but these 
sheep, what have they done ? n His intercession was accepted. The 
prophet Gad came to him again, bidding him to erect an altar to Je- 
hovah on the spot over which the angel had been seen. That spot 
was occupied by the threshing-floor of Araunah, or Ornan, one of 
the old Jebusites of the citv. He was evidently a man of the highest 
consideration ; and from certain expressions, it has even been supposed 
that he had been the king of Jebus before its capture by David. 
Araunah was engaged, with his four sons, in threshing corn by means 
of sledges drawn by oxen, when the vision of the angel caused them 
to hide themselves for fear; but on seeing the king approach, with his 
courtiers, Araunah came forth and bowed down before him, offering, 
as soon as he learned his wish, to give him the threshing-floor as a 
free gift, and the oxen and the implements for a burnt-offering. But 
David refused to offer to Jehovah that which had cost him nothing, 
and paid to Araunah the royal price of 600 shekels of gold for the 
ground, and fifty shekels of silver for the oxen. There he built an 
altar to Jehovah, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and 
the plague ceased. 

This altar first distinctly marked the hill as the sacred spot which 
Jehovah had long promised to choose for his abode. The ark had 
indeed been placed for some time in the city of David, but the stated 
sacrifices had still been offered on the original brazen altar before the 
tabernacle of Gibeon ; and even after the removal of the ark, God had 
spoken to David of his choice of a place to build his house as yet to 
be made. That choice was now revealed by the descent of fire from 
heaven on David's sacrifice, as upon the altar of burnt-offering in the 
wilderness; and David recognized the sign, and said, " This is the 
House of Jehovah God, and this is the altar of the burnt-offering 
for Israel ." The place received the name of Moriah (vision) from 
the appearance of God to David, as the first destroying angel, and 
then by the sign of fire. 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 335 

David at once commenced his preparations for the edifice. We 
have seen him long ago devoting to this use the spoils of his victories, 
which now amounted to 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 talents 
of silver ; and now he collected all the skilled foreign workmen that 
could be found in the land, to hew stones and to do all other work : 
he prepared iron and brass without weight, and procured the cedar- 
wood of Lebanon from the Sidonians and Tyrians. But the work 
itself was destined to another hand. To his son Solomon, now 
designated as his successor, he gave the charge to build a house for 
Jehovah, God of Israel. He told his son how God had denied him 
this desire of his heart, because he had been a man of war, and had 
shed much blood upon the earth ; and how he had promised its ful- 
filment by a son, who was to be named Solomon (peaceful), because 
under him Israel should have peace, and whose throne should be 
established over Israel forever. He also charged the princes of Israel 
to help Solomon, and to set their heart and soul to seek Jehovah. 

The designation of Solomon gave the deathblow to the hopes of 
Adonijah, the son of Haggith, David's fourth, and eldest surviving 
son, a man of great personal beauty, whom his father had always 
treated with indulgence. Taking advantage of David's increasing 
feebleness, he resolved to make himself king. Like Absalom, he pre- 
pared a guard of chariots and horses and fifty foot-runners, and he 
gained over Joab and Abiathar. Zadok, however, with Benaiah, the 
captain of the body-guard, and David's heroes, and the prophet 
Nathan, remained faithful to the king. When Adonijah thought his 
project ripe, he invited his adherents, with all the king's sons (except 
Solomon), who seem to have shared his jealousy, to a great banquet 
at the rock of Zoheleth, near Enrogel, where, amid the mirth of the 
festival, the cry was raised, "Long live King Adonijah." 

The prophet Nathan informed Bathsheba of these pro- 

b. c. 1015. vi i vi u i + + i • 

ceedings, and arranged with her a plan to secure the in- 
terests of her son. Bathsheba went into David's chamber, followed 
soon after by Nathan, to tell him that Adonijah reigned, in spite of 
his promise to Solomon. The aged king had lost nothing of his pru- 
dence and decision. At his command, Zadok the priest and Nathan 
the prophet, supported by Benaiah, with the body-guard of Oherethitcs* 
and Pelethites, proclaimed Solomon king amid the rejoicings of the 
people, and anointed him with the sacred oil, which Zadok took out 
of the tabernacle. The guests of Adonijah dispersed at the news, 
which was brought by Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, and Adonijah 
himself fled for sanctuary to the horns of the altar; but on Solomon's 



336 HISTORY OF TUE BIBLE. 

assurance that his life should be spared if he proved worthy of his 
clemency, he retired to his own house. David gathered all the peo- 
ple to an assembly, in which he gave a solemn charge to them and 
their new king, to whom also he delivered patterns for the house of 
God, and the materials he had collected for the building. These 
were greatly increased by the freewill-offerings of the princes and the 
people. After David had offered thanksgiving and prayer for Solo- 
mon, all the people feasted together, and Solomon was inaugurated 
into his kingdom for the second time, while Zadok was publicly 
anointed as high-priest. The new king was established in prosperity 
and id favor with the people before his father's death. " And Jeho- 
vah magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and 
bestowed upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king 
before him in Israel." A constant memorial of this solemnity is pre- 
served in that most magnificent of the Psalms of David, the seventv- 
second, in which the blessings predicted for the reign of Solomon 
form a transparent veil for the transcendent glories prophesied for 
Christ's kingdom, and which is marked as the crowning contribution 
of its author to the service of the sanctuary by its concluding words, 
"The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended !" 

Amid these happy omens for his house, David approached the end 
of his life. His last act was to send for Solomon and renew the 
charge to him to keep the statutes of Jehovah, as written in the law 
of Moses, that so he might prosper in all his deeds. He added direc- 
tions in reference to the men with whom the young king might not 
know how to deal. Joab was named as a just object of vengeance 
for his two treacherous murders of Abner and Amasa, which arc 
described in very striking figurative language. Barzillai and his 
house are commended to Solomon's favor. The denunciation of 
Shimei has been already noticed. AVe may here anticipate the first 
acts of Solomon's reign, and see how he dealt with these and his other 
enemies. No sooner was David dead, than Adonijah had the audacity 
to solicit, through the intercession of Bathsheba, the hand of Abishag 
the Shunammite, who had been the companion of David's old age, 
though not exactly his concubine. In the latter case, manage with 
her would have been only permitted to the king's successor ; and in 
this light Solomon seems to have viewed the request. Indeed we can 
only understand what followed on the supposition, that this was a 
first insidious step in a new conspiracy of Adonijah with Abiathar and 
Joab, as Solomon's answer clearly implies. Adonijah was put to 
death by the hand of Benaiah ; but Abiathar, in consideration of his 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 337 

office and his old companionship with David, was only banished to 
his home at Anathoth, and deposed from the high-priesthood, which 
thus passed from the house of Ithamar, according to God's sentence 
against Eli. Upon this Joab fled for sanctuary to the horns of the 
altar ; and there, refusing to come forth, lie was slain by the hand of 
Benaiah. His death is regarded as a satisfaction for the blood of Ab- 
ner and Amasa, the guilt of which was thus removed from the house 
of David, but his fate was sealed by his accession to Adonij all's con- 
spiracy. He was buried in his own house in the wilderness, and 
Benaiah succeeded to his command. Shimei was ordered by Solomon 
to dwell in Jerusalem, with the express warning that his departure 
from the city, on whatever pretext, would seal his fate. Three years 
afterward he went to Gath in pursuit of two of his servants, who had 
fled to Achish, and on his return Solomon caused him to be put to death. 
To return to David : the short Psalm, entitled " The 
last words of David," seems, from its closing sentences, to 
have been uttered in connection with his final words to Solomon. Its 
opening sums up the chief features of his life : " David, the man 
raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet 
Psalmist of Israel." After a reign of forty years, seven in Hebron, 
and thirty-three at Jerusalem, " he died in a good old age, full of days, 
riches, and honor, and Solomon his son reigned in his stead." He 
was buried " in the city of David." After the return from the Cap- 
tivity, "the sepulchres of David" were still pointed out between 
Siloah and " the house of the mighty men," or " the guard-house." 
His tomb, which became the general sepulchre of the kings of Judah, 
was known in the latest times of the Jewish people. " His sepulchre 
is with us unto this day," says St. Peter at Pentecost. His acts were 
recorded in the book of Samuel the seer, and of Nathan the prophet, 
and of Gad the seer, " with all his reign and his might, and the times 
that went over him, and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the 
countries." The substance of these records is preserved in the books 
of Samuel and the beginning of the first book of Kings. 

The character of David has been so naturally brought out in the 
incidents of his life that it need not be here described in detail. In 
the complexity of its elements, passion, tenderness, generosity, fierce- 
ness — the soldier, the shepherd, the poet, the statesman, the priest, the 
prophet, the king — the romantic friend, the chivalrous leader, the 
devoted father — there is no character of the Old Testament at all 
to be compared to it. Jacob comes nearest in the variety of elements 
included within it. But David's character stands at a higher point 
22 



338 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of the sacred history, and represents the Jewish people just at the 
moment of their transition from the lofty virtues of the older system 
to the fuller civilization and cultivation of the later. In this manner 
he becomes naturally, if one may so say, the likeness or portrait of the 
last and grandest development of the nation and of the monarchy in 
the person and the period of the Messiah. In a sense more than 
figurative, he is the type and prophecy of Jesus Christ. Christ is 
not called the son of Abraham, or of Jacob, or of Moses, but he was 
truly " the son of David." 

To his own people his was the name most dearly cherished after their 
first ancestor Abraham. a The city of David," " the house of David," 
"the throne of David," "the seed of David," "the oath sworn unto 
David " (the pledge of the continuance of his dynasty), are expres- 
sions which prevade the whole of the Old Testament and all the 
figurative language of the New, and they serve to mark the lasting 
significance of his appearance in history. 

His Psalms (whether those actually written by himself be many or 
few) have been the source of consolation and instruction beyond any 
other part of the Hebrew Scriptures. - In them appear qualities of 
mind and religious perceptions not before expressed in the sacred 
writings, but eminently characteristic of David — the love of nature, 
the sense of sin, and the tender, ardent trust in and communion with 
God. No other part of the Old Testament comes so near to the spi- 
rit of the New. The Psalms are the only expressions of devotion 
which have been equally used through the whole Christian Church — 
Abyssinian, Greek, Latin, Puritan, Anglican. 

The difficulties which attend on his character are valuable as proofs 
of the impartiality of Scripture in recording them, and as indications 
of the union of natural power and weakness which his character 
included. The Pabbis in former times, and critics (like^Bayle) in 
later times, have seized on its dark features and exaggerated them to 
the utmost. And it has been often asked, both by the scoffers and 
the serious, how the man after God's own heart could have murdered 
Uriah, and seduced Bathsheba, and tortured the Ammonites to death? 
An extract from one who is not a too indulgent critic of sacred 
characters expresses at once the common sense and religious lesson of 
the whole matter. " Who is called * the man after God's own heart? ' 
David the Hebrew king, had fallen into sins enough — blackest crimes 
— there was no want of sin. And therefore the unbelievers sneer, 
and ask, 'Is this your man according to God's heart?' The sneer, 
I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, what 



THE REIGN OF DAVID. 339 

are the outward details of a life, if the inner secret of it, the remorse, 
temptations, the often baffled, never ended struggle of it be forgotten ? 
. David's life and history, as written for us in those Psalms of 
his I consider to be the truest emblem ever given us of a man's moral 
progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever discern 
in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul toward what is 
good and best. Struggle often baffled — sore baffled — driven as into 
entire wreck, yet a struggle never ended, ever with tears, repentance, 
true unconquerable purpose begun anew." 



340 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



'qjs 



I 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE EEIGX OF SOLOMON. 
[b. c. 1015-975.] 

HE date of Solomon's accession as sole king can be fixed with 
precision to the year 1015 B. c. He was eighteen years old 
0* at this epoch ; and he reigned forty years, or, more precisely, 
JSj^J thirty-nine years and a half, the sum of his own and his fath- 
er's reign being eighty years. 
The first act of his foreign policy showed a desire to strengthen his 
throne by foreign alliances, and was a wide departure from the spirit 

of the ancient theocracy. He married the daughter of 
b c 1015 . . 

Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and formed an alliance with that 

monarch. This Pharaoh was probably a late king of the 21st 
(Tanite) dynasty ; for the eminent head of the 22d dynasty, Sheshonk 
I. (Shishak), belongs to the latter part of the reign of Solomon, and 
to that of Rehoboam. That this flagrant breach, not only of a 
general principle, but of the specific law against intercourse with 
Egypt, passed unpunished for the time, is an example of that great 
system of forbearance which lies at the basis of each new dispensation 
of God's moral government. But the law of retribution for sinful 
actions by their natural effects was working from the very first, and 
this marriage of Solomon was the first step toward his fall into idola- 
try. Meanwhile "Solomon loved Jehovah, walking in the statutes 
of David his father," and " God was with him, and magnified him 
exceedingly ;" and the only blot upon the outward purity as well as 
prosperity of the kingdom was the retention of the "high places," 
which had been the seats of the ancient worship, for sacrifice, in the 
absence of any house of God. The hill of Gibeon, where stood the 
tabernacle and the altar of burnt-offering, seems only to have been 
regarded as the chief of these high places; and it was probably in the 
course of a series of sacrifices at the different sacred heights that Solo- 
mon visited Gibson, "the great high place," and there, in the midst 
of a great convocation of the people, sacrificed a tenfold hecatomb — a 
thousand burnt-offerings — upon the altar. 

This was the occasion chosen by Jehovah for his first personal 
revelation to Solomon. In the following night God appeared to him 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. 341 

in a dream, and asked him to choose what he should give him. 
After a thanksgiving for the mercies shown to David, and a prayer 
that the promise made to him might be established, Solomon, con- 
fessing himself to be but a little child in comparison to the great 
work committed him in governing and judging the people, asked for 
the wisdom and knowledge that might fit him for the office — "an 
understanding heart to judge thy people, to discern between good 
and bad." The desire, thus expressed in Solomon's own words, does 
not seem to have so high a meaning as is often assigned to it. He 
does not ask that profound spiritual wisdom, which would teach him 
to know God and his own heart : in this he was always far inferior to 
David. His prayer is for practical sagacity, clear intelligence, quick 
discernment, to see the right from the wrong amid the mazes of 
duplicity and doubt which beset the judge, especially among an 
Oriental people. And this gift he received. His aspirations, if not 
for the highest spiritual excellence, were for usefulness to his subjects 
and fellow-men, not for long life, riches, and victory for himself; and 
because he had not selfishly asked these things, they were freely 
granted to him in addition to the gift he had chosen. Assured of 
God's favor, he returned to Jerusalem, and renewed his sacrifices 
before the ark, and made a feast to all his servants. 

An occasion soon arose to prove his divine gift of sagacity. Two 
women appeared before his judgment-seat with a dead and a living 
infant. The one who appealed to the king for justice alleged that 
they had both been delivered in the same house, the other woman 
three days after herself; that the other had overlaid her child in the 
night, and had exchanged its corpse for the living child of the first 
while she slept. The second declared that the living child was hers, 
and both were alike clamorous in demanding it. The king resolved 
to appeal to the maternal instinct, as a sure test even in the degraded 
class to which both the women belonged. Calling for a sword, he 
bade one of his guards divide the living child in two, and give half 
to one woman and half to the other. It is a strange proof of the pro- 
gress of the monarchy toward despotic power that the command should 
have been taken in earnest, but so it seems to have been. The woman 
who had borne the living child now prayed that it might be given to 
the other to save its life, while the latter consented to the cruel parti- 
tion ; and the king had now no difficulty in deciding the dispute. 
The fame of the decision spread through all Israel, inspiring fear of 
the king's justice, and a conviction that God had given him that wise 
discernment which is prized in the .East as a ruler's highest quality. 




342 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. 343 

Solomon arranged his court on the same general basis as his father's, 
but on a scale of much greater magnificence. Among the names 
of his chief officers we find several of his father's most 
' distinguished servants and their sons. There were 
" princes " or chief governors, two " scribes " or secretaries, a " re- 
corder," a " captain of the host," " officers " of the court, the chief of 
whom had, like Hushai under David, the title of " the king's friend ;" 
there was a chief over the household, and another over the tribute. 
The priests were Zadok and Abiathar, though, as we have seen, the 
latter was deposed. The supplies needed for the court were levied 
throughout the whole land by twelve officers, to each of whom was 
allotted a particular district to supply one month's provisions. But 
these contributions were increased by the subject kingdoms between 
the Euphrates, which was the eastern border of Solomon's dominions, 
from Tiphsah (Thapsacus) to Azzah, and the land of the Philistines 
and the Egyptian frontier. The provision for each day consisted of 
thirty measures of fine flour and seventy measures of meal, ten fat 
oxen and twenty from the pastures, and one hundred sheep, besides 
venison and fowl. Juclah and Israel, increasing rapidly in numbers, 
gave themselves up to festivity and mirth, and " dwelt safely, every 
man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan even to Beer- 
sheba, all the days of Solomon." In the great military establishment, 
which Solomon maintained for state as well as for defence, he set at 
naught the law against keeping up a force of cavalry. He had 40,000 
stalls of horses for his 1400 chariots and 12,000 cavalry horses, and 
their supplies of straw and provender were furnished by the twelve 
officers just mentioned. The horses and chariots were brought from 
Egypt, whence also the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria 
obtained theirs. A chariot cost 600 shekels of silver, and a horse 150. 
The chariots and cavalry were placed in garrison in certain cities, 
called " chariot cities," and partly with the king at Jerusalem. The 
commerce with Egypt supplied also linen yarn, which was made a 
royal monopoly. As the result of this and other commerce (to be 
spoken of presently), silver and gold are said, in the hyperbolical 
language of the East, to have been as stones at Jerusalem, and the 
cedars of Lebanon as abundant as the sycamore, the common timber 
of Palestine. 

But all this magnificence was transcended by the personal qualities 
of Solomon l^mself. We have, it is true, no direct description of his 
personal appearance, but we have every reason to believe that he 
possessed the fascination and the grace of a noble presence. Add to 



344 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

this, all gifts of a noble, far-reaching intellect, large and ready sym- 
pathies, a playful and genial humor, the lips " full of grace," the soul 
" anointed " as " with the oil of gladness," and we may form some 
notion of what the king was like in this dawn of his golden prime. 
He used these gifts not only for the government of his people, but for 
the acquisition and the embodiment in writing of all the learning of 
the age. He gave equal attention to the lessons of practical morals 
and to the facts of natural science. " He spake 3000 proverbs, and 
his songs were 1005." He is said to have been thoroughly in- 
structed in natural history ; but we must, however, avoid misconcep- 
tions, both as to the matter of Solomon's knowledge, and as to the 
form of its utterance. It does not appear that he possessed what 
would now be considered great proficiency in natural science, nor 
even such knowledge as Aristotle's, whose works on natural history 
the Rabbis pretend to have been derived from a copy of the writings 
of Solomon sent to him from the East by Alexander ! Solomon's 
natural science, like that of Oriental philosophers in general, con- 
sisted rather in the observation of the more obvious facts in the com- 
mon life and habits of God's creatures, with an especial view to use 
them for the poetical illustration of moral lessons : and in this way 
we find such knowledge used, not only in the Proverbs ascribed to 
him, but in many of the Psalms, and throughout the book of Job. 
The discourses in the latter part of that book about Behemoth and 
Leviathan are probably a type of the manner in which " Solomon 
spake of beasts." It clearly follows that we ought not to suppose 
that Solomon wrote elaborate treatises on these subjects which are now 
lost. Such forms of communicating knowledge do not belong to his 
age or country. His 3000 proverbs and 1005 songs probably con- 
tained nearly all that he wrote upon such matters in the form of 
poetical illustration. For the rest, it should be remembered that in- 
struction, in his time and long after, was chiefly oral. The tents of 
the patriarchs and the abodes of their descendants witnessed many an 
hour when the ancient father would discourse to his descendants on 
the lessons of his experience and the traditions handed down by his 
fathers ; and such we conceive to have been the converse held by 
Solomon in the midst of his splendid court, only on a much grander 
scale, and covering a much wider field. Thus, amid the public life 
of an Eastern monarch, not in the seclusion of the retired student, he 
poured out the knowledge which attracted the subjects of other kings 
from all nations of the earth, to hear for themselves that wisdom the 
fame of which had reached them in their distant countries. In one 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. 



345 



celebrated instance the attraction proved sufficient to bring one of 
those sovereigns themselves from the remotest regions : but this visit 
of the Queen of Sheba belongs to a later period of Solomon's reign. 

The king was meanwhile occupied with three great 
B * c * ' works — the building of the house of God, of his own 
house, and of the wall of Jerusalem. We have seen the vast prepara- 
tions that David had made for the erection of the Temple, the designs 
for which he had 
given into the 
hands of Solomon, 
and how he had 
been aided by. Hi- 
ram, king of Tyre. 
That faithful ally 
sent an embassy of 
congratulation on 
his son's accession, 
and Solomon sent 
back an answer in- 
forming Hiram of " 
his prosperity, de- 
claring his inten- 
tion of building a 
house for God, and 
requesting his 
assistance, which 
Hiram gladly 
promised in a letter. 
An arrangement 
was made by which 

Hiram gave cedars and fir-trees out of Lebanon, which his servants 
felled, while those of Solomon squared and fitted them for their places 
in the building. The pnevisions for both parties were supplied by 
Solomon ; for then, as in the time of Herod Agrippa, the maritime 
region of Phoenicia derived its supplies of food from Palestine. The 
prepared timber was brought down to the sea, and floated round to 
Joppa, under the care of the Tyrian sailors, whence Solomon under- 
took the thirty miles' transport to Jerusalem. He raised the laborers 
required for this great work by a levy of the strangers who lived in 
various parts of the land. All the remnant of these had been finally 
subdued by David, who, instead of exterminating them, retained them 




THE BRAZEN LAVER. 



346 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

in a condition similar to that to which Joshua had reduced the 
Gibeonites. Solomon found their number to be 153.600 ; he appointed 
for the work of transport, I as hewers in Lebanon, and 

the remaining 3600 as overseers. In addition to these, he raised a 
levy oi men out of all Israel, whom he sent to work in 

Lebanon by relays of 10,000, each relay serving for one month and 
i _ home for two. Besides the timber, thev hewed the Great 
stones which were to form the foundation of the house ; stones which 
by the time they reached Jerusalem, must have well earned the name 
of " costly stones,"" which is applied to them in the narrative. Some 
;: thes great stones are still, in all probability, those visible among 
the old substructions of the Temple. 

Besides these contributions of materials and labor, Hiram supplied 
Solomon with a chief architect, a namesake of his own, for whom the 
King of Tyre expressed the reverence of a disciple for an artist by 
calling him "Hiram, my father." This Hiram was the son of a 
widow of Naphtali or Dan , and his father had been a Tyrian artist. 
He devoted his hereditary skill to the service of the God whom his 
mother had doubtless taught him to reverence, in the spirit oi Beza- 
leel, whom he resembled in the great variety of his accomplishments. 
Besides his principal profession as a worker in brass, he wrought in 
gold, silver, and iron, in stone and timber, in purple, blue, fine linen, 
and crimson ; in short, his great gift seems to have been that of design 
in all its branches. The master-pieces of his art were the two pillars 
ast brass, called Jachin and Boaz, which stood on each side of the 
porch in front of the Holy Place. The workmen under him had 
already been provided by David, who, as we have seen, secured the 
services of all the foreign artists residing in the land. 

The actual building of the Temple was commenced in the fourth 
year of Solomon's reign, and the four hundred and eightieth year from 
the Exodus, on the second day of the month Zif (afterward Jyar= 
April and May), the second of the ecclesiastical year, B. c. 1012. 
complete were the preparations that no so&id of axe or hammer was 
heard about the building during its whole erection — 

•• Like some tail palm, the noiseless fabric grew ;" 
and it was completed in seven and a-half years, in the eighth month 
Bui, afterward Marcheshvan=Octuber and XovemberJ of the elev- 
enth year of Solomon, b. c. 1005. It occupied the site prepared for 
it by David, which had formerly been the threshing-floor of the Jebn- 
site Oman or Araunah, on Mount Moriah. The whole area en- 
by the outer walls formed a square of about 600 feet; but the 



THE REIGN OF SOLO M OX. 



34" 




THE MOLTEX SEA. 



sanctuary itself was comparatively small, inasmuch as it was intended 
only for the ministrations of the priests, the congregation of the peo- 
ple assembling in the courts. In this, and all other essential points, 
the Temple followed the model of the Tabernacle, from which it 
differed chiefly by having chambers built about the sanctuary for the 
abode of the priests and attendants, and the keeping of treasures and 
stores. In all its dimensions, length, breadth, and height, the sanctu- 
ary itself was exactly double of the Tabernacle, the ground-plan 
measuring 80 cubits by 40, while that of the Tabernacle was 40 by 20, 
and the height of the Temple being 30 cubits, while that of the Taber- 
nacle was 1 5. 

As in the Tabernacle, the Temple consisted of three parts, the 
Porch, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. The Porch of the 
Temple was 10 cubits deep (in the Tabernacle, 5 cubits), the width 
in both instances being the width of the house. The front of the 
porch was supported, after the manner of some Egyptian temples, by 
the two great brazen pillars Jachin and Boaz, 18 cubits high, with 
capitals of 5 cubits more, adorned with lily-work and pomegranates. 
The Holy Place, or outer hall, was 40 cubits long by 20 wide, being 



348 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




THE GOLDEN LAMP-BEARER. 



in the Tabernacle 20 by 10. The Holy of Holies was a cube of 20 
cubits, being in the Tabernacle 10. The places of the two "veils" 
of the Tabernacle were occupied by partitions, in which were folding 
doors. The whole interior was lined with wood-work richly carved 
and overlaid with gold. Indeed, both within and without, the build- 
ing was conspicuous chiefly by the lavish use of the gold of Ophir 
and Parvaim. It glittered in the morning sun with a dazzling 
brilliancy. Above the sacred ark, which was placed, as of old, in the 
Most Holy Place, were made new cherubim, one pair of whose 
wings met above the ark, and another pair reached to the walls be- 
hind them. In the Holy Place, besides the Altar of Incense, which 
was made of cedar, overlaid with gold, there were Seven golden 
candlesticks instead of one, and the table of shew-bread was replaced 
by ten golden tables, bearing, besides the shew-bread, the innumera- 
ble golden vessels for the service of the sanctuary. The Outer Court 
was no doubt double the size of that of the Tabernacle ; and we may 
therefore safely assume that it was 10 cubits in height, 100 cubits 
north and south, and 200 east and west. It contained an inner court 
called the " court of the priests ;" but the arrangement of the courts and 
of the porticoes and gateways of the enclosure, though described by 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. 349 

Josephus, belongs apparently to the Temple of Herod. There was 
an eastern porch to Herod's Temple, which was called Solomon's 
Porch, and Josephus tells us that it was built by that monarch ; but 
of this there is absolutely no proof, and as neither in the account of 
Solomon's building nor in any subsequent repairs or incidents is any 
mention made of such buildings, we may safely conclude that they 
did not exist before the time of the great rebuilding immediately pre- 
ceding the Christian era. 

In the Outer Court there was a new altar of burnt-offering much 
larger than the old one. Like the latter, it was square, but the 
length and breadth were now twenty cubits, and the height ten. It 
was made entirely of brass. It had no grating, and instead of a 
single gradual slope, the ascent to it was probably made by three suc- 
cessive platforms, to each of which it has been supposed that steps led. 
Instead of the brazen laver, there was " a molten sea " of brass, a 
master-piece of Hiram's skill, for the ablution of the priests. It was 
called u a sea " from the great size, being five cubits in height, ten in 
diameter, and thirty in circumference, and containing 2000 baths. 
It stood on twelve oxen, three toward each quarter of the heavens, 
and all looking outward. The brim itself or lip was wrought " like 
the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies," i. e., curved outward like a 
lily or lotus flower. There were besides ten smaller lavers for the 
ablution of the burnt-offerings. The chambers for the priests were 
arranged in successive stories against the sides of the sanctuary ; not, 
however, reaching to the top, so as to leave space for the windows to 
light the Holy and Most Holy Places. We are told by Josephus and 
the Talmud that there was a superstructure on the Temple equal in 
height to the lower part ; and this is confirmed by the statement in 
the books of Chronicles that Solomon " overlaid the upper chambers 
with gold." Moreover, " the altars on the top of the upper cham- 
bers," mentioned in the books of Kings, were apparently upon 
the Temple. It is probable that these upper chambers bore some 
analogy to the platform or Talar that existed on the roofs of the 
Palace-temples at Persepolis. Such were the chief features of this 
sacred edifice. 

1016 ^ e dedication °f Solomon's Temple was the grandest 

ceremony ever performed under the Mosaic dispensation; 
for the giving of the law from Sinai was too solemn to be called a 
ceremony. Solomon appeared in that priestly character, which we 
have seen borne by his father, to perform this great act on behalf of 
the people, leaving to the priests and Levites the care of the ark and 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




ALTAR OF INCENSE. 



the details of the service, especially the psalmody. The time chosen 
was the most joyous festival of the Jews, the Feast of Tabernacles, 
in the seventh month (Tisri or Ethanim = September and October) 
of the sacred year. Having done the labors of the field, and gath- 
ered in the vintage, the people assembled at Jerusalem from all parts 
of Solomon's wide territories. The full body of the priests attended, 
the usual courses being suspended, and they brought the ark in a grand 
and joyous procession from the city of David to the rest prepared for 
it in the Holy of Holies. There they placed it beneath the spreading 
wings of the cherubim, and drew out the ends of the staves, that 
they might be seen, as in the Tabernacle, behind the veil. Amid all 
the new splendors of its dwelling, the ark of the covenant was the 
same as of old ; it contained nothing but the two tables of the law, 
w r hich Moses had placed in it at Sinai. As the priests retired from 
within the veil, the Levites and their sons, arranged in their three 
courses of psalmody, with all instruments of music, and clad in white 
linen robes, burst forth with the sacred chorus praising Jehovah, 
" For He is good ; for his mercy endureth forever." It was at this 
very moment, "just as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to 
make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking Jehovah," that 




351 



352 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

He gave the sign of His coming to take possession of His house : 
•■ The house was rilled with a cloud, even the house of Jehovah, 
so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud ; 
lor the Glory of Jehovah had filled the House of Jehovah. 
As that sacred cloud spread through the open doors over the sanctuary, 
the voice of Solomon was heard recognizing the presence of the God 
who had said that he would dwell in the thick darkness, and for 
whom he had now built a habitation forever. Then turning to the 
people from the great platform of brass, which he had erected in the 
midst of the court, in front of the brazen altar, the king blessed 
Jehovah the God of Israel, who had chosen Jerusalem as the place 
sacred to His name, and had performed His promises to David and 
fulfilled his desire to build Him a house. And now, kneeling down 
re the whole congregation, with his face toward the sanctuary, 
Solomon poured forth a prayer, unequalled for sublimity and compre- 
hensiveness, in which the leading thought, repeated with beautiful 
variety and minuteness, is this : that the abode which Jehovah had 
now deigned to sanctify with His presence, might prove the centre 
of blessing and forgiveness to His people ; that whatever prayer for 
help, whatever penitent confession in the time of suffering and exile 
y might offer toward that house, God would hear it from His true 
dwelling-place in heaven, and forgive His people who had sinned 
inst Him. The prayer is, indeed, a prophecy of the history of 
Israel, and of God's chastisements of their sins, even to the Captivity. 
He concluded with a blessing and exhortation to the people. 

The prayer of Solomon was followed by another sign of God's 
presence. The fire came down from heaven, as on the first altar of 
burnt-offering, and consumed the sacrifices, while the Shekinah again 
rilled the house, preventing the entrance of the priests, as if, for that 
one day. God claimed the sanctuary as His very own, to the exclusion 
.11 mere creatures. Then Solomon and all the people offered their 
sacrifices on the altar, 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep, the priests 
executing their office, while the Levites played and sang in the order 
and to the words of David. A great feast followed for twice seven 
day-. - n for the Feast of Tabernacles, and seven for the dedication, 
and on the twenty-third day of the month Solomon dismissed the 
pie. They returned to their homes, " glad and merry in heart for 
all the _ Id sss that Jehovah had shewed unto David, and to 
Solomon, and t<> Israel His people." 

Four years more were spent in the completion of the king's "own 
- . ad of his other great works at Jerusalem. The palace 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. 353 

known as the " House of the Forest of Lebanon," was a magnificent 
edifice, and was supplied with audience hall, and courts and gardens, 
with fountains and cloisters for shade, and was in all respects worthy 
of its great occupant. Apart from this palace, but connected with it, 
w r as the palace of Pharaoh's daughter : too proud and important a 
personage to be grouped with the ladies of the harem, and requiring a 
residence of her own. The palace of Solomon was below the platform 
of the Temple, and he constructed an ascent from his own house " to the 
house of Jehovah/' which was a subterranean passage 250 feet long by 
42 feet wide, of which the remains may still be traced. Among his 
other buildings may be mentioned a summer-palace in Lebanon, 
stately gardens at Etham, paradises like those of the great Eastern 
kings, the foundation of something like a stately school or college, 
costly aqueducts bringing water, it may be, from the well of Bethlehem, 
dear to David's heart, to supply his palace in Jerusalem. It was 
about the same time that Solomon undertook the repair of the walls 
of the fortress of Zion, which David had "built round about fror/ 
Millo and inward," as well as of Millo itself. These works wen 
under the superintendence of Jeroboam, the son of JSFebat, of whom 
more will be heard presently. 

After the completion of these works, God appeared a second time to 
Solomon, as at Gibeon, by night, and assured him that the prayers he 
had offered at the dedication of the Temple were accepted, while the 
renewal of the covenant with David and his house was accompanied 
with the most impressive warnings of the ruin which disobedience 
would bring upon king, people, and the sanctuary itself, which would 
be made, as it has indeed become, " a proverb and a by-word among 
all nations." Solomon arranged the Temple service according to the 
courses appointed by David ; and he set the example of sacrifice to the 
people by his own stated offerings on the brazen altar daily, and on 
the Sabbaths and new moons, and at the three great festivals. 

These great works, all connected with the establishment of God's 
house, and of his own royal state at Jerusalem, to which city they 
added an entirely new quarter, occupied the first half of Solomon's 
reign, a period of twenty years, 1015-996 B. c. The services of the 
King of Tyre were acknowledged by the cession of twenty cities along 
the sea-coast of Galilee, a gift at which Hiram expressed his discon- 
tent by a play upon the name of one of them, Cabul, a word signify- 
ing, dirt in the Phoenician dialect. Notwithstanding his displeasure, 
Hiram returned the present, according to the custom of the East, by 
the gift of 120 talents of gold, and the alliance of the two kings re- 
23 



354 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



mained unimpaired. The cities seem to have been restored by Hiram, 
and fortified by Solomon. 

The second half of Solomon's reign was inaugurated by magnificent 
works in other parts of his dominions, and by enterprises of foreign 
commerce. In the southwest, he rebuilt Gezer, which the King of 
Egypt had taken from the Canaanites and destroyed, but which he 
gave to Solomon as his wife's dowry. He also fortified Baalath, 
Beth-horon (the upper and the lower), as well as all the cities where 
he kept his stores and chariots. On the north he made a new 
conquest, the only one recorded in his reign, of Hamath-Zobah. It is 
not clear whether this was the same or distinct from the capital of 
Ha math, the kingdom of Toi, who was an ally, and probably after- 
ward a subject of David ; but, at 
all events, this Ha math, which 
appears to include the valley of the 
Orontes as far as the defile above 
Antioch, belonged to the kingdom 
of Solomon, who built in it several 
of his " store-cities," which formed 
depots for commerce. In the 
midst of the great Syrian Desert, 
half way between Damascus and 
Thapsacus (Tiphsah), where his 
kingdom reached the Euphrates, and 
where was the great passage of that 
river, afterward called the " fatal 
ford," here, in a beautiful oasis, he 
built the city of Tadmor, which be- 
came long after, under the name of Palmyra, the seat of Zenobia's 
brief empire, and whose ruins are among the most striking in the 
world : but travellers have sought in vain, among the stately relics 
of the Roman period, for any vestiges of the architecture of Solomon. 
AVhile thus linking his dominions with the great highways of commerce 
to the north and northeast, he opened the path of maritime enter- 
prise, both in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, in conjunction 
with the Tyrian fleets of Hiram. On the one side, it seems to be im- 
plied in Kings, and is expressly stated in Chronicles, that the king 
sent a navy every three years, probably by way of Joppa, to trade 
with the distant regions of the west, which were vaguely described by 
the name of Tharshish. The phrase "ships of Tharshish " is however 
not confined to ships that actually went to those regions : but like the 




RUINS OF TAD3I0R. 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. 355 

" East-Indiamen," it rather describes a class of vessels fit for the most 
distant and difficult voyages : and the products which that navy 
brought seem rather to have come from Solomon's oriental traffic. 
This was conducted from the two ports of Elath (iElana, Akabah) 
and Ezion-geber, at the head of the eastern gulf of the Eed Sea (Sinus 
iElaniticus, Gulf of Akabah), which the conquest of Edom had added 
to the kingdom, and which were visited by Solomon in person. From 
these ports the fleet built by Solomon, and navigated by the skilled 
sailors of Hiram, sailed to Ophir, a place in the Indian Ocean, prob- 
ably on the eastern coast of Arabia, and returned after a three years' 
voyage, bringing gold, silver, ivory, and precious stones for wealth and 
ornament, almug (or algum) trees, the rare wood of which was used 
for terraces (or verandas) to the Temple, and lastly (for Solomon 
added to his magnificence the whims of luxury), apes and peacocks. 

The amount of gold brought to Solomon by this navy is variously 
stated at 420, 450, and in one year as much as 666 talents, besides 
what was brought by merchants, and the tribute of gold and silver 
from the chieftains of Arabia. Silver was so abundant as scarcely to 
be esteemed a precious metal, and all the king's drinking- vessels were 
of gold. The " House of the Forest of Lebanon " too had all its 
vessels of pure gold ; and in it were hung 200 targets of beaten gold, 
each weighing 600 shekels, and 300 shields of three pounds each. 
But the most magnificent work made from these precious things was 
Solomon's throne of ivory and gold. It was a chair of state, such as 
we still see in the Assyrian thrones, with a round back and two lions 
supporting the arms, and was elevated on six steps, each flanked by a 
pair of lions, the symbols of the tribe of Judah. The chair seems to 
have been made of ivory inlaid with gold, the steps of plates of ivory, 
and the lions of beaten gold. 

Seated " high on this throne of royal state," which shone with " the 
wealth of Ormuz and of Ind," and " exceeding all the kings of the 
earth for riches and for wisdom," Solomon dispensed justice, and re- 
ceived the visitors from all parts of the world, who came to hear his 
wisdom, bringing their presents of vessels of gold and silver, garments, 
armor, spices, horses and mules. Among them came one, whose visit 
has been rendered doubly memorable by the allusion made to it by 
Christ. Far to the south, on the shores of the Arabian Gulf, the 
country of Sheba (probably the modern El- Yemen) was ruled by a 
queeu, who seems to have enjoyed among the tribes of Arabia a repu- 
tation like Solomon's for wisdom. His fame reached her ears, and 
she determined to judge for herself. With an immense caravan of 






■ '■ m . ; ■- ; .i"; ■ ; ,V',: 
ll 




356 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. 357 

camels, bearing gold and precious stones and spices, she came to Jeru- 
salem, to try Solomon with those " hard questions," which have always 
formed the favorite exercise of oriental ingenuity. " She communed 
with him of all that was in her heart." The perfect wisdom of the 
king's replies in this conflict of wit and learning, the magnificence of 
his buildings, the splendor of his royal state, the order of his court, 
completely overwhelmed the queen : " there was no more spirit in her." 
She confessed that all was true which she had heard, and refused to 
believe, in her own country ; nay, the half had not been told her : and 
she blessed Jehovah, and the people to whom he had given such a 
king. Having given and received magnificent presents, she departed 
to her own country ; and the odor of her visit was long preserved by 
such an abundance of spices as was never known at Jerusalem before 
or since. Whether she went back a convert to the true faith, as her 
praises of Jehovah seem partly to imply, and how far her visit tended 
to the planting of the numerous proselytes whom we afterward find 
in Arabia, can only be matter of conjecture ; and the traditions, by 
which the simple narrative of her visit is overlaid, scarcely deserve 
notice. But the zeal with which she journeyed from the ends of the 
earth to prove for herself the wisdom of which she had heard so much, 
stands recorded by " One greater than Solomon " for the eternal 
shame of those who neglect to hear Him, when he stands in their very 
midst; Him who is the incarnate Wisdom that formed the noblest 
subject of Solomon's discourse. The visit of the Queen of Sheba 
marks the culminating point of Solomon's glory. It remains for us to 
relate the lesson which his later years give of the vanity of all human 
splendor and the inherent defects of despotism, even when based on the 
recognition of the true religion. 

The faults of # Solomon were both personal and 
political. The fruit of the latter scarcely appeared 
till the reign of his son ; but that reign commenced with a protest 
against "the heavy yoke" of Solomon, and the whips with which he 
chastised the people ; and, as we shall presently see, the discontent 
had begun to show itself before his death. His personal faults were 
the natural result of unbounded wealth and luxury. That his fall 
was not more abject and irreparable, proves that " large heart " which 
Milton gives him, and still more God's faithfulness to his covenant 
with David. He began, as we have seen, by taking a foreign and 
heathen wife, the daughter of Pharaoh : to her he added wives from 
the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittitea, in 
short, from all the nations with whom God had expressly forbidden 



358 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

intermarriages ; and in defiance of the charge of Moses to the king, 
he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, with the result which Moses 
had foretold. In his old age, his wives turned away his heart from 
Jehovah to their gods, and induced him to provide places for their 
worship. He served Ashtoreth, the moon-goddess of the Zidonians, 
and Moloch (or Milcom), the " horrid king" whom the Ammonites 
worshipped with human sacrifices. The Mount of Offense, forming 
the south summit of the Mount of Olives, which rises directly oppo- 
site to Mount Moriah on the east, was made the sanctuary of this 
deity. He also built a temple to Chemosh, the obscene god of Moab, 
and similar fanes were erected for other gods, at which his wives 
burned incense and offered sacrifice. 

These outrages, the more flagrant in the king who had himself 
built the Temple, and to whom Jehovah had twice given solemn 
warnings mingled with his promises, called down the wrath of God, 
whose covenant with David alone saved Solomon from the fate of 
Saul. The judgment was denounced upon him, that his kingdom 
should be "rent" from him and given to his servant ; and his last 
years were troubled with the beginnings of the revolution. He had 
already some formidable enemies. One of these was Hadad, prince 
of Edom, who had escaped to Egypt from the massacre of Joab, and 
had married the sister-in-law of Pharaoh, who at last gave a reluctant 
consent to Hadad's return to his own country, where he began a 
harassing war against Solomon. A still more formidable adversary 
was raised up in the person of Rezox, who had been a servant of 
Hadadezer, the Syrian king of Zobah, upon whose defeat by David, 
Rezon gathered a band of outlaws, maintained himself against the 
whole power of Solomon, and finally succeeded in founding the 
Syrian kingdom of Damascus, the relations of which to Israel were 
afterward so important. 

But the great danger denounced on Solomon for his sin arose from 
one of his own servants, Jeroboam, the son of Xcbat, an Ephraimitc 
of Zereda, whose mother, Zeruah, was early left a widow. He grew 
up to be " a mighty man of valor ;" and was employed, as a young 
man, upon the fortifications of Millo. His energy attracted the 
notice of Solomon, who made him overseer of the works imposed 
upon the tribe of Joseph (Ephraim). According to the LXX., Jero- 
boam had the whole honor of completing the fortifications of the city 
of David ; having done which, he aspired to the kingdom, and 
courted popularity by the same means which Absalom had used. 
There is nothing of this in the Hebrew text ; and his designation by 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON 



359 




EASTERN CASEMENT. 



the prophet Ahijah seems as great a surprise to himself as that of 
Saul to Samuel. Jeroboam had gone out of Jerusalem, when he was 
met on the road by Ahijah the Shilonite, who snatched the new 
garment off his own back, and, tearing it in twelve pieces, gave ten 
of them to Jeroboam, telling him the word of God, that he would 
rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon except one tribe, 
which should remain for the sake of David, and to preserve God's 
worship at Jerusalem; while the other ten should be given to 
Jeroboam, but only after the death of Solomon. The matter reached 
the ears of Solomon, who sought the life of Jeroboa§i ; but the latter 
fled to Egypt, and remained there with Shishak (whose name is now 
mentioned for the first time) till the death of Solomon. According 
to the LXX., Shishak gave him the sister of his wife and of Hadad's 
wife, as an inducement to his remaining in Egypt. 

Amid such beginnings of impending trouble, Solomon approached 
the end of his course. The history says nothing of his repentance, 



360 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

nor indeed of any result produced by God's warnings and chastise- 
ments. His whole character had probably become too worldly for 
the heartfelt penitence of his father. But yet we have in the book 
of Ecclesiastes a review of the whole experience of his life, based on 
the recognition of the fear of God ; the review of a religious philoso- 
pher, rather than of a spiritual believer. It gives the experience of 
a man who has tasted every form of pleasure, and pronounces all to 
end in disappointment ; and from this restless search after excitement 
— in which every supposed novelty is found to be the same thing over 
and over again, generation after generation, the Royal Preacher 
comes back to this simple result — that true life consists in the dis- 
charge of duty from religious motives : " Fear God, and keep his 
commandments; for this is the whole [life] of man." 

Solomon died at Jerusalem in the 40th year of his 
-r> p QTo 

reign, and was buried in the royal sepulchre in the city 

of David. The history of his reign was written by the prophets 
Nathan and Ahijah, by Iddo the seer, in his " Visions against Jero- 
boam," and in the " Book of the Acts of Solomon." The first three 
works probably formed the basis of the narrative in the first book 
of Kings ; while the substance of the last is preserved in epitome in 
the second book of Chronicles. Notwithstanding his immense 
harem, we only read of his having one son, his successor Rehoboam, 
the son of Naamah, a princess of Ammon. 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 361 



BOOK VI. 

the divided monarchy — the captivity and the return. 

[b. c. 975—400.] 




CHAPTER XX. 

THE KINGDOMS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL— FROM THE DIVISION OF THE MON- 
ARCHY TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE HOUSE OF AHAB. 

[b. c. 975-884.] 

OON after the death of Solomon, the prophecy of Ahijah was 

fulfilled ; his kingdom was rent in twain, and the parts, 

both greatly weakened by the disruption, formed the separate 

kingdoms of Judah and Israel. To a superficial observer, 

the northern kingdom, including ten tribes, about two-thirds 

of the population, and, with the region east of the Jordan, more than 

the same proportion of the land,* and that much the best in quality, 

would seem to have had all the elements of greater 
b c 975 . 

strength. But, on the other hand, Judah retained the 

capital, the centre of the organized system of government and of the 
material interests of the nation, together with the accumulated trea- 
sures of Solomon. And, to say nothing of the energy of the tribe of 
Judah, which was, perhaps, equalled by Ephraim, Zebulun, and 
Naphtali, all the moral and religious elements of greatness were on 
the sides of the southern kingdom. 

From the very first, the blot of rebellion clung to the cause of 
Israel ; the divine selection of Jeroboam to punish the sins of Solo- 
mon was not held to justify his rebellion. He was indeed assured 
that obedience to God's law would be rewarded by the establishment 
of his kingdom and his dynasty; but his very first acts severed every 
religious bond to Jehovah and his worship, and his course was fol- 
lowed by his successors, of whom, with scarcely an exception, we read 

* The areas of the two kingdoms were respectively, Israel, about 9375 square 
miles, Judah about 3435 ; the former being about as large as the State of New 
Hampshire, and the latter about half as large as New Jersey. The whole of 
Palestine was about equal in area to Maryland and Rhode Island combined. 



361 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the emphatic sentence, " he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and 
walked in the way of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin." 

On the other hand, the kingdom of Judah was preserved from the 
defection of the other tribes, expressly for the sake of God's covenant 
with David, and to maintain his worship at its chosen seat ; and the 
immediate consequence of Jeroboam's religious revolt was to drive all 
the priests and Levites to Jerusalem. With the line of David re- 
mained God's promise of a permanent kingdom, made doubly sure 
by its ultimate reference to the Messiah ; in that family the crown 
was handed on, generally from father to son ; while, in Israel, the 
dynasty of Jeroboam ended with his son ; and there followed a series 
of murders and usurpations, amid which the longest dynasties, those 
of Omri and Jehu, only numbered four and five kings each. From 
the disruption to the epoch at which Ahaziah, king of Judah, and 
Jehoram, king of Israel, were killed at the same time by Jehu, a* 
period of ninety years (b. c. 975-884), Judah had only six kings 
(though Ahaziah reigned but one year), while Israel had nine ; and, 
in the whole period of 255 years, from the disruption to the captivity 
of Israel, twelve kings of Judah occupy the same space as nineteen 
kings of Israel ; a striking indication of the greater stability of the 
former dynasty. The moral superiority is equally striking, not only 
in the preservation of the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem, while 
Israel was sunk in idolatry, but even on the comparatively weak 
ground of the personal character of the kings. It is true that the 
house of David was deeply corrupted, chiefly by its connection with 
the wicked house of Ahab ; but it boasts the names of Asa, Jehosha- 
phat, Uzziah, Jotham, the godly Hezekiah, the penitent Manasseh, 
the pure Josiah ; while not one of the kings of Israel is free from the 
blot of foul wickedness ; for even the fierce zeal of Jehu had no 
purity of motive. The two kingdoms were equally distinguished in 
their final fate. The sentence of captivity was executed upon Israel 
about 130 years sooner than on Judah ; and while the ten tribes 
never returned to* their land, and only a scattered remnant of them 
shared the restoration of Judah, the latter became once more a small 
but powerful nation, not free from the faults of their fathers, but wor- 
shipping God with a purity and serving him with a heroic zeal 
unequalled since the days of Joshua, and preparing for the restoration 
of the true spiritual kingdom under the last great son of David. 

The part of the history thus reviewed, down to the Captivity at 
Babylon, may be marked out into three great periods : — I. From the 
disruption to the simultaneous deaths of the kings of Judah and 




RUINS OF THE GOLDEN GATE AT JERUSALEM. 



3C3 



364 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Israel by the hand of Jehu, in B. c. 884 : — II. To the captivity of 
Israel by Shalmaneser (or Sargon), in B. c. 721 : — III. The remain- 
ing history of Judah, down to the Captivity at Babylon, in b. c. 586. 
"We return to the thread of the history from the death of Solomon. 

Rehoboam, or Roboam (LXX.) was the son of Solomon by 
Xaamah, an Ammonite princess. As he was forty-one at his acces- 
sion, he must have been born about the time of his father's association 
with David in the kingdom. The luxury in which he was trained 
seems to have given him a light and headstrong character, on which 
his father's precepts were thrown away; he was quite unequal to the 
difficulties bequeathed to him by Solomon ; and he was scarcely 
seated on the throne, before the old jealousy between Judah and the 
other tribes broke out anew. It was probably to conciliate such 
feelings, as well as to comply with the form of popular recognition 
which had been observed in the case of Solomon, that, not content 
w r ith his accession to the throne at Jerusalem, he held an assembly of 
all Israel at the ancient sanctuary of Shechem ; unless, indeed, that 
assemblage were rather the act of the Israelites themselves, and of 
Ephraim in particular, with a view to resist his claims. At all 
events, such an opposition seems to have been prepared from the first 
convocation of the assembly ; and Jeroboam was sent for out of 
Egypt by the malcontents. His appearance at the head of the con- 
gregation may be taken as a proof that their demand for the redress 
of the grievances they had suffered under Solomon was a pretext for 
revolt. Rehoboam took three days for deliberation. He was advised 
by his father's old counsellors to take away the pretext by a concilia- 
tory answer. This step, they thought, would have satisfied the 
majority of the people, with whom the names of David and Solomon 
had not yet lost their prestige. But the king would not yield a jot j 
and he took counsel witb the younger men, who had grown up with 
him at the court. Urged on by ihem, he refused the petition with 
reckless insolence. " You complain of my father's heavy yoke ; I 
will add to its weight ! my little finger shall be thicker than his 
loins ! He chastised you with whips ; I will chastise you with scor- 
pions ! " Then Ephraim and all Israel raised again the old cry of 
Sheba, disclaiming all part in the house of David, and calling Israel 
to their tents. Adoram, the chief officer of the tribute, being sent to 
appease the tumult, was stoned to death, and Rehoboam only escaped 
by fleeing' in his chariot to Jerusalem. 

__ The rebellion was complete, and Jeroboam was pro- 

claimed kino; over all Israel at Shechem. The cities of 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 365 

Judah, however, adhered to Rehoboam, and the tribe of Benjamin 
soon espoused his cause. Ever since the great blow inflicted on that 
tribe, it seems to have been more or less subordinate to Judah. The 
appearances to the contrary are rather proofs of the impatience with 
which the yoke was borne. The capture of Jerusalem, which lay 
within the bounds of Benjamin, from the Jebusites, by the great king 
of Judah, gave his house a powerful hold upon the feelings of the 
tribe ; and it is not improbable, from the similar course afterward 
token by Rehoboam, that David may have established his sons in the 
fortified cities of Benjamin. Perhaps too Jeroboam's profanation of 
their sacred city of Bethel may have offended the tribe. At all 
events, we find them answering the summons of Rehoboam to a war 
for the subjugation of the rebels, with all their military force. The 
united army Qf Judah and Benjamin amounted to 180,000 warriors ; 
but the enterprise was forbidden by the prophet Shemaiah, as God 
had willed the separation of the kingdoms. A desultory warfare was 
however kept up between the two kingdoms under Rehoboam and 
his two successors, for a period of sixty years, and its cessation was 
followed by a most disastrous alliance with the house of Ahab. 
Meanwhile Rehoboam made every effort to strengthen his diminished 
kingdom ; fortifying several of the most important cities of Judah 
and Benjamin, and furnishing them with arms and provisions. 
When the boundaries of the kingdom of Judah became settled, they 
embraced the territories of Dan and Simeon, which were originally 
included in the lot of Judah, and ultimately even a part of Ephraim. 
On the south, Edom was still retained till the reign of Jehoram, 
the fifth king ; but we are not told whether Hadad was defeated or 
made tributary. The cause of Rehoboam was strengthened by the 
resort to him of the great body of priests and Levites from all parts 
of Israel, whom Jeroboam had deposed from their functions; and the 
first three years of his reign were exceedingly prosperous. But he 
was corrupted, like his father, by his numerous harem, which was 
composed of eighteen wives and sixty concubines ; he had twenty sons 
and sixty daughters. His three chief wives were all of his own 
family; Mahalath, the grand-daughter, and Abihail, the niece of 
David, and Maachah, the daughter of Absalom. The last was his 
favorite wife, and the mother of Abijah, his successor. He provided 
for his other sons, and guarded Abijah from their rivalry, by giving 
them splendid establishments in the fortified cities of Judah and 
Benjamin. Meanwhile both king and people declined into idolatry, 
and practised the most abominable vices of the nations around, and 
their punishment was speedy. 



366 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

In the fifth year of Rehoboam, Shishak (Sheshonk I.), king of 
Egypt, whom we have already seen as the protector of Hadad and 
Jeroboam, made an expedition against Jerusalem with aH 
the forces of his empire. He took the strong cities of Judah, 
and had reached Jerusalem, when the king and people, reproved by 
the prophet Shemaiah, humbled themselves before Jehovah, who 
saved them from captivity. Shishak, however, spoiled the Temple 
and the king's palace of their treasures, and carried off the celebrated 
golden shields of Solomon, which Rehoboam replaced by shields of 
brass, to keep up the old display when they were carried before him 
in processions. The kingdom of Judah became for a time tributary 
to Shishak, that the people might learn the difference between the 
service of God and the service of heathen kings. The expedition of 
Shishak is one of the chief points of contact between sacred history 
and the records of the Egyptian monuments. On the wall of the 
great temple of Karnak are the sculptured figures of captains with 
features clearly Jewish, and the appended inscription contains, among 
a long list of conquests, the name of " Yuda Melchi " (the kingdom of 
Judah). 

The lesson seems not to have been lost on Rehoboam and his peo- 
ple. " There were yet good things in Judah ;" but the sum of the 
king's character is this : " He did evil, because he fixed not his heart 
to seek Jehovah." He died after a reign of seventeen years, and was 
buried in the city of David. His acts were recorded by the prophet 
Shemaiah, by the seer Iddo, in his book of genealogies, and in the 
Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. 

Abijah, the son of Rehoboam, was the second kin£ of 
b c 957 ... 

Judah. He succeeded his father in the eighteenth year of 

Jeroboam's reign, and reigned three years at Jerusalem. He con- 
tinued the war with Jeroboam, and gathered the whole force of 
Judah and Benjamin for the subjugation of the ten tribes. Accord- 
ing to our present text, he brought into the field 400,000 chosen 
warriors, and Jeroboam met him with 800,000, of whom 500,000 fell 
in the rout at Zemaraim, in Mount Ephraim, where the favor of God 
prevailed against the skilful tactics which Jeroboam imitated from 
Joshua. The loss of the men of Judah is not stated. In consequence 
of this victory, Abijah took Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephrain, with 
their dependent towns ; and Jeroboam never again made head against 
him. This success, granted to the arms of Judah " because they 
relied upon Jehovah, the God of their fathers," proved his forbear- 
ance with the sins of Abijah for David's sake. The fact that Abijah 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 36T 

upbraids the men of Israel with their rebellion and idolatry, and 
relies on the goodness of the cause of Judah, who had Jehovah for 
their God and the priests keeping his charge, is no proof that his 
personal vices are exaggerated in the book of Kings. Abijah fol- 
lowed the example of his predecessors in his numerous harem. He 
had fourteen wives, and was the father of twenty-two sons and fifteen 
daughters. His history was written by the prophet Iddo, and in the 
Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. He died, and was buried in the 
city of David, leaving the kingdom to his son Asa in such a state of 
strength and prosperity, that Jeroboam did not venture to resume the 
war ; and the confusion which soon ensued in the royal family of 
Israel insured Judah a ten years' peace. Abijah's death was followed 
in less than two years by that of Jeroboam, to whose history we now 
return. 

Jeroboam I., the first king of the separate kingdom of Israel, was 
inaugurated (like Abimelech) at Shechem, by the choice of the men 
of Israel. He fortified that city and Penuel for his two capitals, west 
and east of Jordan, but fixed his own residence at the beautiful town 
of Tirzah. The ten tribes which adhered to him are probably to be 
reckoned by taking Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) as one, and ex- 
cluding Levi and Judah. The secession of Benjamin still left the 
number ten, by counting Ephraim and Manasseh separately. Dan 
remained in the number, in virtue of its possessions in the north. 
Simeon was actually included in the kingdom of Judah; but the tribe 
seems to have sunk into such insignificance as to be numbered among 
the ten only by a sort of negative computation. Beyond the old lim- 
its of Palestine, Moab was attached to Israel ; and Amnion would 
naturally preserve its family alliance with Rehoboam, to whom, as we 
have seen, Edom was also subject; but a common interest soon 
prompted these tribes to union, against both the kingdoms. As for 
the allies and tributaries of Solomon in Phoenicia and Syria, though 
now cut off from Judah, they are not at all likely to have submitted 
to the King of Israel. We hear of no further connection with Phoe- 
nicia, Ccele-Syria, and the Lebanon ; and we soon find the Syrian 
kingdom of Damascus, whose rise we have already noticed, a most 
formidable enemy of Israel. 

After all these deductions, Jeroboam was at the head of a fine king- 
dom, populous, powerful, and fertile, and abounding in the resources 
which Solomon had developed. The prophet Ahijah had promised 
the establishment of his kingdom on the condition of obedience to Je- 
hovah. But Jeroboam had no faith in his political security so long 



368 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

as his subjects continued to resort to the capital of his rival as their 
religious home. There were ancient sanctuaries within his dominions, 
and the erection of one of these into a new centre of worship, though 
illegal, might not perhaps have been altogether inexcusable. Or he 
might have allowed the priests to continue their domestic ministra- 
tions, and the people would only have been too ready to break off their 
visits to Jerusalem. But his fear prompted a more violent and fatal 
course, which added a religious schism to the political disruption, and 
brought down the divine wrath on his house and kingdom. Resort- 
ing to the idolatry which he had witnessed in Egypt, and following 
the example of Aaron, whose very w T ords he used, he set up two golden 
calves, the symbols of the Heliopolitan deity Mnevis, in the two ex- 
tremities of his kingdom. Dan was probably chosen as having been 
the sanctuary of the northern tribes, ever since the Danites had sat up 
there the images of Micah ; Bethel as the " house of God " for all 
Israel since its consecration by Jacob. The latter was the chief seat 
of the new worship, which the king himself inaugurated on the fifteenth 
day of the eighth month, in imitation of the dedication of the Temple 
at the Feast of Tabernacles, but a month later, " in the month which 
he had devised of his own heart" Having appointed priests " from 
the lowest of the people," in place of the Levites, whom he deposed 
and drove from their cities to Jerusalem, he erected an altar at Bethel, 
upon which he burned incense in the feast he had appointed. In the 
very midst of the ceremony, a man of God, sent by the word of Je- 
hovah out of Judah, confronted Jeroboam at his altar, on which he 
prophesied that a son of David, named Josiah, should one day offer 
the bones of the idolatrous priests who sacrificed upon it ; and he added 
a sign, that the altar should be rent and the ashes on it poured out 
upon the ground. The enraged king called on his guards to seize the 
prophet, and put out his own hand to lay hold of him ; but the hand 
was withered and fell helpless, and an earthquake rent the altar. 
On the prophet's prayer, entreated by the king, his hand was restored, 
and he begged the man of God to accept his hospitality and a reward, 
which he refused, and departed by another way, as he had been com- 
manded. How he yielded to an aged brother prophet the consent he 
had refused the king, how he was slain by a lion for his disobedience 
and buried by the old prophet, who entreated that his bones might be 
laid beside him, to preserve them from the fate denounced on the idol 
priests, is one of those beautiful episodes of Scripture familiar to our 
earliest recollections. But the warning had no permanent effect on 
Jeroboam, who presisted in his idolatrous worship, and consecrated 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 3G9 

any one as a priest who could afford to bring the prescribed offering 
of a young bullock and seven rams. 

So another chastisement befell him in his own family. His son 
Abijah, the only one of his house " in whom there was found some good 
thing toward Jehovah the God of Israel/' was mercifully removed 
by death from the wickedness around him. On his falling ill Jero- 
boam sought help secretly from the God whom he had openly forsaken. 
It is an interesting point in the history of the kingdom of Israel, 
and one which most impressively teaches God's long-suffering, that in 
spite of the apostasy under Jeroboam, there were never wanting 
prophets to testify for Jehovah ; and while the chief prophetic writers 
of a later age belong to Judah, those most distinguished for their 
actions, as Elijah and Elisha, prophesied in Israel. Thus Ahijah, the 
Shilonite, who had designated Jeroboam to the kingdom, was still at 
Shiloh ; and to him the king's wife resorted in disguise, with a present 
of bread and honey. The prophet was blind, but God had warned 
him of her coming, and given him a terrible answer for her. At the 
sound of her feet upon the threshold, Ahijah addressed her by name, 
and recounting all the sins of Jeroboam, foretold the speedy extinc- 
tion of his race and the coming captivity of Israel. The child was 
to die, but, as the reward of his piety, he alone of all his house should 
be buried in peace; the rest should be the food of dogs and vultures. 
The queen returned to Tirzah, and the child expired as she crossed 
the threshold. He was buried and lamented by all Israel, as their 
last hope amid the vices of the royal house and the calamitous defeat 
in the great battle with Judah. Not long after Jeroboam died, and 
was buried in the sepulchre of his fathers, after a reign of twenty- 
two years. He was succeeded by his son Nadab. 

Nadab, the second and last king of the dynasty of 
Jeroboam, succeeded his father in the second year of Asa, 
king of Judah, and reigned for parts of two years (b. c. 954-953), imitat- 
ing the sins of Jeroboam. The only recorded action of his reign is the 
siege of Gibbethon, a city in the territory of Dan, which, having been 
abandoned by the Levites, to whom it belonged, when they wore 
driven out by Jeroboam, had been occupied by the Philistines. Its 
possession was eagerly contested by the kings of Israel, who besieged 
it again and again. Nadab here fell the victim to a military conspi- 
racy under Baasha, his captain of the host, who killed the king and 
all the house of Jeroboam, and so fulfilled the prophecy of Ahijah. 

With the extinction of the first dynasty, the crown of Israel passed 
from the tribe of Ephraim to that of Issachar; but the second dynast v 
24 



370 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

also lasted for only two generations. Baasha, the son of Ahijah, 
became the third king of Israel in the third year of Asa, king of 
Judah, and reigned at Tirzah four-and-twenty years. His entire 
addiction to the sins of Jeroboam brought upon his house the same 
fate as theirs, which was denounced upon him by the prophet Jehu, 
son of Hanani. His whole efforts seem to have been devoted to the 
war with Judah. In the thirteenth year of his reign (the fifteenth 
of Asa), alarmed by the defection of the worshippers of Jehovah to 
the pious king of Judah, he attempted to blockade the frontier by 
fortifying Ramah ; but Asa called in the help of Benhadad I., the 
Syrian king of Damascus, who invaded the north of Israel, and took 
Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and the store-cities of Xaphtali. This diversion 
recalled Baasha from Judah, against which he seems to have, made no 
more serious attempts. He died and was buried at Tirzah, in the 
twenty-sixth year of Asa, leaving the kingdom to his son Elah, the 
fourth king of Israel, who reigned for only parts of two years (b. c. 
930-929), and was then killed at Tirzah, in a state of intoxication, by 
Zimri, the commander of half his force of chariots. With him per- 
ished all the house of Baasha, who were massacred by Zimri, as Jehu 
had foretold. 

Zimri, the fifth king, enjoyed his usurpation at Tirzah only seven 
days. The army of Israel, which was then engaged in the siege of 
Gibbethon, having elected Omri, their general, as king, marched to 
attack Tirzah, which they carried by assault. Zimri shut himself up 
in the palace, which he burned over his head in his despair. The 
crown was also claimed by Tibni, son of Ginath, and he drew half 
the people after him, but was defeated and killed, after a civil war of 
four years, from the twenty-seventh to the thirty-first of Asa. 

Omri was the sixth kirns of Israel, and the founder of 
B c 925 . . 

the third dynasty, which lasted for three generations and 

four kings. His father's name and tribe are unknown. The twelve 
years of his reign are probably to be dated from the death of Elah, 
as his full recognition is placed in the thirty-first year of Asa, and 
the accession of his son Ahab in the thirty-eighth of Asa ; so that his 
six years' reign at Tirzah would include the civil war. He aban- 
doned Tirzah, and built the famous city of Samaria, which continued 
to be the capital of the kingdom until the destruction of the kingdom 
of Israel. His dynasty became notorious for its wickedness, surpass- 
ing all its predecessors, so that " the statutes of Omri " became a 
by-word for a course opposed to the law of Jehovah. Of the particu- 
lar events of Omri's reign, we are only able to infer from a subsequent 




371 



372 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

allusion, that the Syrian king of Damascus, Benhadad I., continued 
the war with Israel, and forced his own terms on Omri, who con- 
sented to receive a resident envoy in his new capital of Samaria. 
Israel was fast losing the power of an independent state; but the 
kingdom was still adorned with much wealth and luxury, when Omri 
left it to his son Ahab, in the thirty-eighth year of Asa, king of 
Judah, to whose long reign we must now return. 

Asa, the third king of Judah, succeeded his father 
Abijah, in the twentieth year of Jeroboam I., king of 
Israel, and reigned for the long period of forty-one years. His name, 
which signifies curing or physician, was significant of his work. 
Himself, a worthy son of David, and having " his heart perfect with 
Jehovah all his days," he reformed the religious and moral abuses 
of the three preceding reigns. He put down the unnatural vices 
which had grown up under Rehoboam, and destroyed the idols. 
Even his mother Maachah was deposed from the rank of " queen - 
mother" — which was reckoned a great dignity in the East — because 
she had set up an Asherah (or idol), probably for the impure orgies 
of Ashtoreth ; and Asa cut down and burned her Asherah, and 
strewed its ashes on the brook Kidron, just as Moses had treated the 
golden calf. Still, however, the old hill-sanctuaries were retained as 
places of worship. They were suppressed by Jehoshaphat, but par- 
tially; and again long after by the zeal of Josiah. Asa repaired 
Shishak's plunder of the Temple by rich offerings of gold and silver, 
in addition to those dedicated by his father, probably in the early 
part of his reign, but since transferred to the heathen shrines. It is 
indeed curious to observe how soon the treasures, of which the 
Temple was repeatedly stripped — by Shishak, by Asa himself at a 
later time, and by other kings — were again supplied. The commerce 
established by Solomon with Arabia and the East, and with the 
silver-producing regions of Western Europe, must have continued to 
flourish. The great victory of Abijah over Jeroboam secured peace 
to Judah for the first ten years of Asa's reign ; and he used it in 
building new fortifications to his cities. He raised an array of 
580,000 men (if we might trust the numbers of our common text), 
of whom 300,000 were men of Judah, armed with spear and shield, 
and 280,000 Benjamite archers. This military preparation was pro- 
bably connected with an attempt to throw off the tributary yoke 
which Shishak had imposed upon Rehoboam ; and it brought upon 
Asa the whole force of the Egyptian monarchy. At least it is 
probable t)\at " Zerah, the Cushite" (or Ethiopian), was a king of 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 373 

Egypt. He invaded Judah at the head of a million of men ; but 
Asa encountered him at Mareshah (near the later Eleutheropolis) in 
the southwest of Judah ; and, after a fervent prayer to God, he routed 
the Ethiopian host and pursued them to Gerar. He returned to 
Jerusalem with the spoil of the cities round Gerar, and with in- 
numerable sheep and cattle. A solemn appeal was made by God to 
king and people, while their hearts were still warm with the victory. 
The prophet Azakiah, son of Oded, met Asa on his return, and 
exhorted him and his subjects to be strong, heart and hand, in seek- 
ing God. He gave an affecting description of the former state of 
Israel : — u For a long season Israel hath been (or was) without the 
true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law." His 
words roused the hearers to a new and more thorough reformation. 
The idols were removed from all the cities of Judah and Benjamin, 
and those which had been won from Ephraim. The altar of burnt- 
offering, which had probably been polluted, was renewed, and Asa 
called a great convocation at Jerusalem in the third month of the 
fifteenth year of his reign (b. c. 940). It was attended not only by 
all Judah and Benjamin, but by many of Ephraim, Manasseh, and 
other tribes ; and a covenant was made, with solemn oaths and joyful 
shouts and music, to serve God with all their hearts, and to punish 
all idolatry with death. This general defection to Asa of the wor- 
shippers of Jehovah throughout the kingdom of Israel must have 
added great strength, especially moral strength, to Judah. It 
alarmed Baasha, the king of Israel, who renewed the war with all 
his forces, and, as we have seen, fortified Ramah, as a sort of 
blockading station on the frontier of Judah, to prevent his subjects 
from going over to Asa. It was then that the good king of Judah 
committed the one great error of his life. He not only resorted to 
the heathen king of Damascus, Benhadad I., but he took the trea- 
sures of the house of God to purchase his alliance. Benhadad's inva- 
sion of Northern Israel recalled Baasha from Ramah, and the stones 
and timber which he had collected were carried away by Asa to build 
the frontier forts of Geba (the hill) and Mizpeh (the watch-torvcr) in 
Benjamin. The great well of Mizpeh was still remembered as Asa's 
work in the time of Jeremiah. 

Asa's want of faith was reproved by the seer Hanani, the father 
of that Jehu who prophesied both to Baasha and Jehoshaphar. He 
told Asa that he had lost the honor of conquering Benhadad by seek- 
ing his alliance, and denounced against him constant war for the rest 
of his days. It is a sign of the growing loss of reverence for the 



374 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

supreme authority of Jehovah, that even in Judah the discharge of a 
prophet's office had now come to involve danger to his person. 
Hanani was imprisoned by Asa in his rage, and others of the people 
were oppressed for the same cause. The king's conduct is to be 
ascribed partly to unbroken prosperity, and partly to the irritation of 
disease, for in his last years he suffered from the gout. The censure 
cast on him for " seeking not to Jehovah, but to the physicians," is no 
doubt founded on the principle, on which the whole retributive sys- 
tem of the Mosaic law is based, that every form of temporal suffering 
was to be viewed as a chastisement from God and to be met first by 
humiliation and prayer to him, who would then permit the physician 
or any other secondary agent to do his office with such success as it 
might be his will to grant. Asa sank under the disease in the forty- 
first year of his reign, having been contemporary with all the first 
seven kings of Israel. His body was laid in a bed of spices in a 
sepulchre he had prepared for himself in the city of David, and pre- 
cious odors were burned for him in great abundance, as was the cus- 
tom at the funerals of worthy kings. 

Jehoshaphat, the fourth king of Judah, was the son 
of Asa and Azubah. At the age of thirty-five he succeeded 
his father in the fourth year of Ahab, king of Israel, and reigned at 
Jerusalem twenty-five years. He followed his father's piety, and 
possessed an energy which makes him the most like David of all the 
other kings of Judah. He raised the kingdom to the highest point 
that it had reached since the disruption ; but his unhappy alliance 
with Ahab went far to neutralize all his excellences, and brought ruin 
upon his successors. He was contemporary with Ahab and his two 
sons, Ahaziah and Jehoram. 

Jehoshaphat began his reign by fortifying the cities of Judah and 
Benjamin, as well as those taken by his father in Mount Ephraim, 
while he became rich by the presents which attested the confidence of 
his subjects; and Jehovah was with him. He carried on his father's 
reformation by removing the groves and high places ; but this was 
only imperfectly accomplished, " for as yet the people had not pre- 
pared their hearts unto the God of their fathers." In the third year 
of his reign, he gave a commission to his chief princes, in conjunction 
with certain Levites and priests, to teach the people and to read the 
book of the Law in all the cities of Judah. His piety was rewarded 
with prosperity. He had peace with all the surrounding nations. 
Even the Philistines paid him tribute, and the Arabians brought the 
immense flocks of rams and goats which David had described in the 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 375 

72d Psalm. He continued to fortify and garrison the cities ; at Jeru- 
salem he had a band of captains, like those of David ; and under their 
command was a greater army than had yet been raised, though the 
numbers in our text are very much too large. His power had become 
too great for the King of Israel to hope for success in a new war ; and 
the growing strength of the Syrian kingdom of Damascus may have 
prompted the alliance which was now formed between Jehoshaphat 
and Ahab, and which requires us to look back to the history of Israel. 
Ahab (properly Achab), the seventh king of Israel, and 
the second of the dynasty of Omri, succeeded his father in 
the thirty-eighth year of Asa, and reigned twenty-two years at Sama- 
ria. His name has attained an evil eminence in the world's history. 
Like Antiochus Epiphanes and Nero, he had a love of art, and he 
was not destitute of generous impulses ; but he stands forth an exam- 
ple of the lengths of wickedness to which a weak selfishness may be 
driven by the influence of a stronger will. His fate was decided by 
his marriage with Jezebel, a name even more infamous than his 
own, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians. The very name 
of this prince (the Man of Baal) suggests the consequences of the 
alliance. In place of the worship of Jeroboam's calves, which, mon- 
strous idols as they were, yet professed to be symbols of Jehovah, the 
service of Baal was established throughout Israel. Ahab built him 
a temple and an altar at Samaria, and made him a grove for the im- 
pure orgies of Ashtoreth. There was a great college of his priests, or 
prophets, who numbered 450, besides 400 prophets of the groves; and 
all these were maintained at Jezebel's table. By her orders, the 
prophets of Jehovah were put to death, except a hundred, who were 
'hid and fed in a cave by Obadiah, the governor of Ahab's house : for 
even at his court there was at least one servant of Jehovah, as there 
were Christians in Nero's household. The influence of the court and 
the force of persecution completed the apostasy of the people, so that 
it was an unexpected consolation for the great prophet of the age to 
be assured that Jehovah had 7000 left in Israel, whose knees had not 
bowed to Baal, and their' lips not kissed him. 

This darkest night of Israel's spiritual declension was broken by 
the appearance of the greatest of all the prophets since Moses, and the 
type of that great preacher of repentance who was the forerunner of 
the Christ. 

Elijah the Tishbite has been well called " the grandest and the 
most romantic character that Israel ever produced." He meets us 
with a suddenness as startling as the first appearance of John the 



376 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



Baptist preaching repentance in the wilderness of Judaea. There is 
not a word of his parentage ; and of his birthplace we only know 
that it was in the land of Gilead east of Jordan. But this one fact 
accounts for the prophet's outward peculiarities. Like Jephthah 
among the judges, he came of a wild, uncultured, pastoral race, 
whose mode of life had become more and more assimilated to that 
of the Bedouins of the neighboring desert, and who retained great 
force of character and power of physical endurance. His only cloth- 
ing was a girdle of skin round his loins, and the ''mantle," or cape, 
of sheepskin, the descent of which upon Elisha has passed into a pro- 
verb. Sheltered from Jezebel's persecution in the solitudes of Mount 
Gilead, he had been prepared by Jehovah for his mission to the apos- 
tate king and people. 

It was probably about the tenth 
year of Ahab's reign, that Elijah 
| suddenly appeared before the king 
to declare, as the word of Jehovah, 
p confirmed by an awful oath, that 
there should be no rain in the land 
for three years but at his word. 
From the Xew Testament we learn 
that the prophet was more than a 
mere messenger of the judgment. 
"He prayed earnestly that it might 
not rain : and it rained not on the 
land by the space of three years and six months. And he pra 
again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her 
fruit." This passage, introduced to show the power with' 
God exerted by ''men affected like ourselves," may help 
to guard us against too mechanical a view of the prophet's functions. 
In his agonizing prayer upon Mount Carmel, at the close of the 
drought, we see how his own desire went forth to meet the will of 
God; and, though the history is silent as to all that preceded his mes- 
sage to Ahab, the words of James justify the supposition of a like 
scene ; when the prophet, brooding over the state of Israel, as we see 
him at a later period, and preparing to stand forth as the champion 
for God, like Luther in his cell, put up fervent prayers for the sign 
that might attest his mission. Like Luther again, who of all men 
bevond the records of Scripture, had most of Elijah's spirit, he was 
saved from the immediate risk, at which he discharged his mission, 
by the command of God to hide himself in the wady of the Cherith, 




ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. 



B. C. 910 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 377 



whose position is uncertain. The history leaves the court, to follow 
the prophet ; but it has been supposed that Jezebel's slaughter of the 
prophets was in revenge 
for the denunciation of 
Elijah. He remained in 
his hiding-place, fed by 
the ravens morning and 
evening with bread and 
meat, till the brook dried 
up, and he had to seek 
another refuge. The word 
of Jehovah sent him, as 
our Lord emphatically 
declares, not to any of the 
secret worshippers of God 
in Israel, nor to any city 
of Judah, perhaps lest he 
should appear to be a 
partisan of the rival king- 
dom ; but the honor of 
nourishing God's prophet 
was granted to a woman, 
a poor widow of the hea- 
then city of Zarephath, in 
the territory of Zidon. 
Elijah went thither, and 
found at the city gate a 
poor woman gathering a 
few sticks, to bake a cake 
made of her last handful 
of meal and her last drop 
of oil, that she and her 
only son might share it and 
then die. We need not 
repeat the familiar story 
of the faith with Avhich 
she consented to sustain 
Elijah, the miraculous re- 
plenishing of the barrel of 
meal and the cruse of oil, as long as the famine lasted, and the restor- 
ation of the widow's son to life at the prophet's prayer. 




ELIJAH'S SACRIFICE. 



378 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



In the third year, Elijah was bidden to leave his concealment and 
show himself to Ahab. The drought had now become so disastrous, 
that the greatest exertions were needed to find grass enough to save 
the lives of the king's horses and cattle. Ahab undertook the search 
in person, taking one way himself, and sending his chief officer, Oba- 
diah, by another. The latter, who has been mentioned as a zealous 
worshipper of Jehovah, was encountered by Elijah, and reluctantly 
undertook the risk of announcing to Ahab the prophet's reappearance. 
The king met Elijah with the threatening question, " Art thou he 
that troubleth Israel ? " — and the prophet retorted the charge upon 
himself for his apostasy and idolatry. He then challenged the king to 
a decisive* trial between Baal and Jehovah, and a scene ensued upon 
Mount Carmel which has no parallel in the history of the worfd. On 
the one side were Baal's prophets, to the number of 450, supported by 
the court and followed by the people; for neither the few secret wor- 
shippers of Jehovah, nor the 
many whom his judgments had 
rendered dissatisfied with their 
idolatry, dared to show sympathy 
with the prophet. Elijah stood 
alone : but God was with him. 
His challenge was all the bolder, 
considering the juggling tricks 
with which the heathen priests 
were familiar, and which the 
king would be ready to abet. 
But it is on the side of Elijah that we find precautions taken against 
such tricks, and taken by his own desire. He proposed a test of the 
simplest kind ; that each party should prepare a bullock and wood, 
and pray to their respective gods to send down fire upon the sacrifice, 
"And the god that answereth by fire, let him be God." All the 
people assented to so fair a trial. Elijah gave Baal's prophets the 
choice between the victims, and the first trial. At early morn they 
prepared the sacrifice, and the air resounded till high noon with their 
wild chorus, growing more and more excited, "OBaal, hear us ! Baal, 
hear us ! Hear us !" The stillness of the summer noon was unbroken 
by an answer, and they leaped on their altar with frantic gesticulations. 
As the sun bent over the meridian, Elijah assailed both priests and 
god with that irony which the prophets often levelled at idolatry : — 
" Cry aloud ! for he is a god ! He is only abstracted in his own 
thoughts ! Or he has gone hunting, or upon a journey. Or perhaps 




THE SHinSTAMMITE'S SON. 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 379 

he is asleep and must be awaked !" The priests renewed their cries, 
as if they half believed the last taunt, and cut their flesh with knives 
according to their custom, till their blood streamed down. But there 
was not a sign that their god so much as noticed them. And now 
the declining sun had reached the sacred hour of the evening sacrifice ; 
and the exhausted priests ceased their " vain repetitions." With the 
utmost deliberation Elijah repaired the broken altar of Jehovah, and 
replaced the twelve unhewn stones that had formed it ; for Carmel 
was a spot sure to have been a sanctuary, though the fact is not pre- 
viously recorded. Having made a trench round the altar, and laid 
the bullock in pieces upon the wood, he for the first time commands 
the assistance of the people, to exclude all possibility of fraud. Thrice 
they poured water over the victim, the wood, and the altar, till the 
trench was full ; so that no fire could possibly be concealed. At the 
very moment of the evening sacrifice, Elijah invoked the God of their 
fathers to show his divinity, and to turn back the people's hearts ; and 
the fire came down from heaven in sight of all the people ; consuming 
not only the sacrifice and the wood, but the very stones and dust 
of the altar, and licking up the water in the trench. All the people 
fell upon their faces crying out, "Jehovah, he is the God ! Jeho- 
vah, he is the God !" Their new-awakened zeal was at once turned 
by Elijah against the idolaters. " Take the prophets of Baal !" he 
exclaimed — " let not one of them escape !" He was obeyed ; and they 
were slain to a man on the bank of the river Kishon, a sacrifice to 
Baal in place of their vain offering. Ahab, who seems to have been 
a passive spectator of the scene, now yields himself to the direction of 
the prophet, who assures him that he hears the sound of abundant 
rain, and retires to his tent to eat and drink, while Kishon runs red 
with the blood of the priests. As he is thus engaged, Elijah withdraws 
to the summit of Carmel, and sits with his head bowed down between 
his knees, while his servant looks out over the sea for the first sign 
of rain in the west. Six times the lad reports that the sky is clear, 
and the prophet bids him look again ; but at the seventh he brought 
back the message, which has ever since passed into a proverb : — " Be- 
hold there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand." 
At this sign the prophet sent the king word to prepare his chariot. 
The heaven grew black with clouds; and amid the cataracts of a rain- 
storm in that climate, Elijah ran before the king's chariot to the gates 
of Jezreel, a distance of sixteen miles. 

The fierce spirit of Jezebel remained unsubdued, and her threats 
drove Elijah again to fly for his life. He traversed all Israel and 



> 

H 



H 

o 




380 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 381 

Judah to Beersheba; and there he left his servant, while he himself 
went forward under the impulse of the same Spirit which long after 
drove Christ into the wilderness. After one day's journey, he was 
overcome by fatigue and despair ; and he sat down under a juniper 
tree, and prayed for death. His words betray that deep conscious- 
ness of individual weakness, to which the chosen servants of God have 
often yielded : — " I am not better than my fathers." But an angel 
touched him, and bade him arise and eat: he looked up, and saw a 
fire, with a cake of bread baked upon it, and a cruse of water by his 
head ; and in the strength of that food he passed forty days and nights 
in the wilderness of Sinai. There, like Moses, he was favored with a 
vision of the glory of Jehovah. From that well-known scene of ter- 
rible convulsion, followed by an awful stillness, he learned the great 
lesson, that God's presence is to be felt, not so much in the grand 
displays of power which strike our senses, as in the " still small voice " 
that speaks directly to the heart. He had seen the fire come down 
from heaven, heard the people confess their God, and slain Baal's pro- 
phets ; and yet the work seemed all to be done again ; but now he 
learned that the quiet power of God's spirit was working in the people's 
hearts, and there were 7000 men who had not done homage to Baal. 
Thus reanimated for his remaining work, he was sent to prepare for 
three great changes affecting the state of Israel ; to anoint Hazael as 
the future king of Syria, in place of Benhadad ; Jehu, the son of 
Nimshi, as king of Israel, in place of Ahab's house; and Elisha, the 
son of Shaphat, to be prophet in succession to himself. These three 
were to follow each other in the destruction of the worshippers of 
Baal. Elijah only performed in person the last of the three acts, the 
designation of Elisha, leaving to him the other two, which he himself 
found no opportunity to execute. 

Elisha's native place was at Abel-meholah (the meadow of the 
dance), a place in the valley of the Jordan, near its junction with 
the plain of Jezreel. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, 
himself guiding the twelfth, a proof of the wealth he abandoned to 
"put his hand to the plow" of Jehovah, when Elijah arrived on his 
way up the valley toward Damascus, and, without saying a word, cast 
his prophet's mantle upon Elisha, as if claiming him for a son. Elisha, 
with a heart prepared by God, only begged to give his father and 
mother a parting embrace, and Elijah consented, in words implying a 
keen feeling of Elisha's separation from the ties of affection. Elisha 
celebrated the sacrifice of himself by offering the yoke of oxen with 
which he had been plowing, the flesh of which he boiled with the 



382 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

wood of the yoke and the plow, and made a parting feast for the 
people of the village. He then followed Elijah and became " his 
servant," for such was the relation between a prophet and his nearest 
comrade, as afterward in the case of Elisha and Gehazi. It was, in- 
deed, an honor which the first minister of the greatest king might 
have coveted, to be known as " Elisha the son of Shaphat, who poured 
water on the hands of Elijah." These events comprise the first j)eriod 
of Elijah's course. He disappears from the scene for a considerable 
time, occupied possibly with the journey to Damascus to anoint Haz- 
ael. The King of Israel, who no doubt supposed that he had got rid 
of his great " troubler," seized the opportunity to perpetrate a deed of 
enormous wickedness. 

Ahab's capital was at Samaria ; but he had a favorite residence at 
the beautiful city of Jezreel (now Zerin), " the Versailles of Israel," 
where we have already seen him. His regal lust of improving his 
fair domain was checked by a vineyard, the property of a man of 
Jezreel, named Naboth, who clung like a true Israelite to his patri- 
mony, though the king offered him its price in money, or a better 
vineyard. With the petulance of a despot crossed in his will, Ahab 
took to his bed, and refused to eat ; but he was roused by Jezebel 
from despondency so unworthy of a king who had power to make 
law for himself. So abject was the degradation of the people, so 
shameless the tyranny of the crown, that the elders of Israel at once 
obeyed the written orders of Jezebel to proclaim a fast, and in the 
name of religion and loyalty, to put their fellow-citizen to death on 
the evidence of witnesses of their own suborning. Naboth was 
dragged out of the city, and stoned as a blasphemer against God and 
the king, and, at the call of Jezebel, Ahab arose to take possession of 
the vineyard. But God sent Elijah to meet him there ; and the king's 
conscience betrayed itself in the cry, "Hast thou found me, oh mine 
enemy?" "I have found thee," answered the prophet, and went on 
to mark the scene of this last crime as that of God's judgment for all 
his sins; "in the place where dogs licked the blood of ^saboth, 
shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine." Jezebel's fate was to be 
still, more terrible; the dogs would eat her under the walls of Jezreel; 
and the whole house of Ahab should be exterminated, and their flesh 
given to the dogs and vultures. This was Elijah's last mission to 
Ahab, and he does not appear again till the next reign. For once 
Ahab repented and humbled himself with fasting and sackcloth, and 
God postponed the full execution of the sentence till after his death. 

The last years of Ahab's reign were chiefly occupied by two great wars 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 383 




MOUNT CAEMEL. 



with Syria. His signal victories in the first of these wars may be 
viewed as a token of the acceptance of his penitence for Naboth's murder. 
Benhadad II. had treated him as a vassal, and the King of Israel 
had complied with his demands ; but when Ahab was required to give 
up his wives and children, he saw that it was but a pretext for a final 
quarrel. He refused with spirit; and it is to the mouth of this in- 
famous king that we owe the noble proverb, " Let not him that gird- 
eth on boast himself as he that putteth off." The king of Damas- 
cus received the message as he was carousing with the thirty-two 
confederate kings, who had followed him to the siege of Samaria; 
and lie bade them set their immense forces in array against the city, 
and returned to his cups secure of an easy victory. At this junc- 
ture a prophet came to tell Ahab that God had delivered these hosts 
into his hand. His little army of 7000 men went out of the city, 
preceded by the 232 young princes of the tribes; and Benhadad, who 
was drinking in his tent at the noontide banquet, with a contemptu- 
ous indifference as to whether they came out for a sally or a surrender, 
ordered them to be taken alive. But each of the princes killed the 
man who laid hands upon him ; their followers rushed to the attack ; 
the panic-stricken Syrians were pursued with great slaughter, Benha- 
dad hardly escaping on his horse. The same prophet warned Ahab 
to expect a new attack the following year. Bcnhadad's servants per- 



384 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

saaded him to fight in the low country, as the gods of Israel were 
gods of the hills ; but they added the good advice to replace the con- 
federate kings by chosen captains. So the Syrians offered battle at 
Aphek, a Availed city which they had taken from Israel in the low 
country east of the Jordan. Ahab divided the whole force of Israel into 
two bodies, which looked like two flocks of kids in presence of the 
vast armies of Syria ; but a prophet announced to him that Jehovah 
would prove himself the God of- the valleys as well as of the hills. 
After watching each other for seven days the armies joined battle ; 
the Syrians were routed with a slaughter of 100,000 men, and 27,000 
more were crushed by the fall (perhaps in an earthquake) of the wall 
of Aphek, in which they had taken refuge. Benhadad now resolved 
to throw himself on the mercy of Ahab, whose impulsive nature was 
shown in a generosity which proved fatal to himself. Instead of 
seizing the opportunity to regain the frontier of Solomon on the north- 
east, and to restore the kingdom of .Israel in the fear of God, he was 
content with Benhadad's promise to give back the towns taken from 
Omri by Benhadad I. and to receive a resident envoy in Damascus. 
For the fourth time in this war, a prophet was sent to Ahab; and, 
after obtaining the king's judgment against himself by the ingenious 
preparation of a supposed case, he told the king that God would take 
his life in place of the life of Benhadad. So Ahab returned to Sa- 
maria in displeasure. 

The peace with Syria lasted for three years, but it does 
not appear that Benhadad restored the cities as he had 
promised. At length Ahab seized the opportunity of a visit from his 
ally, Jehoshaphat, whom he entertained sumptuously, to propose a 
joint expedition for the recovery of Ramoth-gilead. The pious king 
of Judah proposed to consult the word of Jehovah ; and Ahab tried 
to satisfy him by summoning his own 400 prophets, men who seem to 
have been trained as prophets of Jehovah and to have spoken in His 
name, while prostituting their office to the king's pleasure. With one 
voice they promised Ahab the victory in the name of Jehovah. Still 
Jehoshaphat asked if there were no more prophets of Jehovah ; and 
Ahab remembered a certain Micaiah the son of Imlah, whom, how- 
ever, he hated, as he was always a prophet of evil. He sent for him, 
apparently out of prison, and Micaiah went, declaring that he must 
speak the word which Jehovah should put into his mouth. He found 
the two kings upon their thrones in their robes of state, and all the 
prophets before them, one of whom, Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, 
had placed horns of iron on his head, to show how Ahab should push 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 385 

the Syrians to destruction. Whether through fear or in irony, 
Micaiah at first chimed in with them; but, adjured by Ahab to tell 
the truth, he foretold the king's death by likening Israel to a flock 
without a shepherd ; and, in the form of a vision like that at the 
opening of the book of Job, he denounced the other prophets as pos- 
sessed by a lying spirit sent by God to deceive Ahab. Upon this 
Zedekiah struck and taunted him, and the king sent him back to the 
dungeon, while Micaiah warned both of their coming fate, and called 
the people to witness his words. The words of Micaiah induced 
Ahab to disguise himself in the ensuing battle at Ramoth-gilead, 
while Jehoshaphat wore his royal robes. Benhadad had commanded 
his chariots to direct all their force against the king, and Jehoshaphat 
was so hard pressed that he only escaped by crying out that he was 
not Ahab. In spite of his precautions, Ahab was mortally wounded 
by a chance shot from a bow. He was supported in his chariot, while 
the battle raged, till sunset, and then he died. At his fall the cry 
went through the host, " Every man to his city and to his country.'' 
His body was brought to Samaria, and there buried, but not till the 
words spoken by Elijah at Naboth's vineyard were fulfilled ; for as 
his chariot was washed out at the pool of Samaria, the dogs licked up 
his blood. He was succeeded by his son Ahaziah. 

Jehoshaphat returned to Jerusalem unmolested. The severe lesson 
of Ramoth-gilead was enforced by the prophet Jehu, who met him on 
the way, upbraiding him for his alliance with those who hated God, 
but praising him for his piety. The king addressed himself with re- 
newed zeal to the work of reformation. He went in person through 
his kingdom from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim, reclaiming the 
people to the God of their fathers. He appointed judges in all the 
fortified cities, and in Jerusalem he established a court of priests and 
Levites and heads of houses, for the final decision of all cases relating 
to the law of Jehovah. At the head of the latter he set the high- 
priest Amariah for all religious causes, and Zebadiah, son of Ishmael. 
the prince of Judah, for matters relating to the king. To both he 
gave a charge worthy of his name. The judges throughout the land 
were reminded that they judged not for man but for God, and in the 
fear of Jehovah, with whom " there is no iniquity, nor respect of 
persons, nor taking of gifts ;" and the supreme court was admonished 
to "deal courageously, and Jehovah shall be with the good." 

Meanwhile the disaster of Ramoth-gilead encouraged the old 
enemies on the eastern frontier. The Moabites, the Ammonites, 
with the people of Mount Seir, and the tribes of the neighboring 
25 



386 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

desert, threw off the yoke which they had borne since the time of 
David. We read of two campaigns, the first against Jehoshaphat by 
a league of all these tribes, and the second against Jehoram, king of 
Israel, and Jehoshaphat as his ally, by the king of Moab, who was 
the vassal of Israel, as Ammon and Edom were of Judah. 

When word was brought that the hordes of the enemy were at 
En-gedi, on the west side of the Dead Sea, Jehoshaphat proclaimed a 
fast through all the land, and in a congregation of all Judah, with 
their wives and children, before the Temple, he offered a prayer 
which is the echo of Solomon's, appealing to God not to let the 
heathen, whom he had driven out before his people, cast them out of 
his possession ; for so, in the true spirit of the covenant, he calls their 
land. The answer was at once given in a most striking and unusual 
form. In the midst of the congregation, the Spirit of Jehovah fell 
upon Jahaziel, the son of Zechariah, a Levite of the family of 
Asaph, and he cried out to the king, with all Judah and Jerusalem, 
to go forth on the morrow to a victory without a battle ; their part 
would be only to " stand, and see the salvation of Jehovah." The 
king bowed his face to the ground, while the Levites raised a lofty 
song of thanksgiving. With renewed songs of praise, they marched 
forth in the morning toward the wilderness of Tekoa, where, at that 
very time, a strange scene of slaughter was enacting. Confused by 
the ambuscades they had set for the men of Judah, the different 
nations fell one upon the other. The people of Moab and Ammon, 
having first cut to pieces the inhabitants of Mount Seir, turned to 
mutual slaughter; and, when the men of Judah approached, and 
their scouts looked out from the watch-tower over the wilderness, the 
whole face of the ground was covered with dead bodies. No less 
than three days were occupied in gathering the spoil, which was 
more than they could carry away, and on the fourth they assembled 
to renew their songs of praise in the valley which was thence called 
Berachah (blessing) ; and they continued them as they marched back 
to Jerusalem, and up to the house of God, with Jehoshaphat in their 
van. This great deliverance struck terror into all the nations, and 
secured peace to Judah for the rest of his reign. The campaign in 
which he aided Jehoram against Moab had a very similar issue. He 
also joined Ahaziah in an attempt to renew the maritime enterprises 
of Solomon by way of the Red Sea ; but the fleet was wrecked at 
Ezion-geber, as a punishment for his alliance with Ahaziah, according 
to the word of the prophet Eliezer, son of Dodavah, of Mareshah, 
and Jehoshaphat refused Ahaziah's proposal to renew the attempt. 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 387 

He died, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, leaving 
his kingdom to his unworthy son Jehoram, who had already been 
associated in the government during the last years of his father's life 
(see 2 Kings i. 17, viii. 16). His name is preserved in the "valley 
of Jehoshaphat," the deep ravine between Jerusalem and the Mount 
of Olives. But it seems more than doubtful whether the name is 
derived from him, and is not rather an appellative, signifying the 
great judgment of which the scene is laid by the prophet Joel in the 
" Valley of the Judgment of Jehovah." 

Ahaziah, the eighth king of Israel, began to reign in 
the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat, and reigned two 
years in Samaria. He was the son of Ahab and Jezebel; and his 
character is emphatically described by the words, " he walked in the 
way of his father and of his mother," as well as in the way of Jero- 
boam. Besides worshipping Baal, he sent to consult Baal-zebub, the 
god of Ekron, when he was dangerously ill from a fall through a 
lattice of his palace. This brings Elijah again upon the scene. He 
was sent by God to meet the king's messengers, and to denounce their 
master's death, because he had inquired of an idol, as if there were 
not a god in Israel. The prophet was not personally known to the 
messengers ; but from their description of him as " a hairy man, girt 
with a girdle of leather about the loins," Ahaziah at once recognized 
Elijah the Tishbite, whose wild form and sharp words had been the 
terror of his father's court. He sent a captain of fifty with his band 
to seize the prophet. They found him sitting on " the top of the 
mount " (probably Carmel), and the captain, seemingly in a mocking 
tone, called to him, " Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come 
down." " If I be a man of God," said Elijah, " let fire come down 
from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty :" and it was done. A 
second captain of fifty went and repeated the order in a more per- 
emptory form, " Come down quickly" and he had the same fate. 
The third implored the mercy of Elijah, who, at God's command, 
went with him, and repeated to the king himself what he had already 
said to his messengers. This was Elijah's last appearance to the 
house of Ahab. As he had predicted, Ahaziah never rose again 
from his bed, but died, leaving his kingdom to his brother Jchoram. 
His commercial league with Jehoshaphat has already been mentioned. 
It is at this point that the sacred narrative introduces one of the 
greatest events of the old dispensation, the ascent of Elijah. The 
chronology is intricate, but the event seems to have taken place about 
the time of Ahaziah's death. The chief difficulty arises from the 



338 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

letter which Elijah sent to Jehoram, king of Judah, prophesying his 
destruction because he followed the sins of the house of Ahab. This, 
by the way, is the only point of connection between Elijah and the 
house of David, and the only mention of his name in the Chronicles. 
Now Jehoshaphat, the father of Jehoram, took part in the campaign 
which is related after Elijah's ascension, and in which too Elisha 
appears as the prophet. That Elisha ever left his attendance upon 
Elijah to act in public, before he received the prophet's mantle, is a 
supposition quite unwarranted by the history. That the letter of 
Elijah to Jehoram was written before but delivered after his ascen- 
sion, is a violent assumption. The true and simple explanation is, 
that Jehoram began to reign over Judah some years before his father's 
death, as we have already seen. There is, therefore, no reason to 
depart from the order of the narrative in Kings. 

When the time had come that God had appointed to 
" take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind," the prophet 
was with Elisha at Gilgal. We know not what intimation he had 
received of the manner of his departure ; but thus much is clear, that 
he desired to end his life, as he had passed its greater portion, in 
solitude with God. But his devoted servant had also been fore- 
warned of his loss, and persisted in following him to Bethel. There 
the sons of the prophets meet Elisha with the words, " Knowest thou 
that Jehovah will take away thy master from thy head to-day?" and 
he answers, "I do know it: hold ye your peace." The same scene is 
repeated at Jericho, where Elijah again fruitlessly asks Elisha to 
stay behind. They went on to Jordan, while fifty of the sons of the 
prophets came out to gaze after them across the plain. Arrived at 
the river's edge, Elijah rolled up his sheepskin mantle, and smote the 
water, which parted, as long ago before the ark, and they walked 
through on dry ground. At the moment of passing the river, they 
exchanged their last words. Elisha, desired to name a parting gift, 
asks that a double portion of Elijah's spirit may rest upon him ; that 
is, that he may not only succeed to the prophetic office, but be made 
the true heir of the power to work miracles, and turn the hearts of 
Israel to their forsaken God. "Thou hast asked a hard (or bold) 
thing," said Elijah ; " if thou see me taken from thee, it shall be so 
unto thee ; but if not, it shall not be so." They were still talking as 
they walked forward, when Elisha found himself separated from his 
master by a chariot and horses of fire; and Elijah was borne up on 
the wings of the storm to the vault of heaven. Elisha saw him be- 
fore he vanished in the sky, and rending his clothes uttered the bitter 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 389 

outcry of a bereaved son, "My father! my father! The chariot of 
Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" He saw the meaning of the 
chariot sent to convey him who had been the true strength of Israel 
against her own kings, who trusted in forbidden chariots and horses. 
He saw too that his last prayer to his master was granted : he took 
up the mantle which Elijah had let fall, and at once put his power to 
the proof by again dividing the waters of Jordan on his return to 
Jericho, where the prophets, who had remained watching, welcomed 
him as the successor of Elijah. The prophets sent fifty active men 
in search of Elijah, thinking that God might have carried him away 
to some lonely mountain, though Elisha warned them that it would 
be in vain ; and his word was confirmed by the return of the messen- 
gers after three days. Elisha's stay at Jericho was marked by a 
miracle, which the local tradition commemorates to the present day, 
the cure of the bitter water of one of the two springs that rise at the 
foot of the hill behind the town by casting into it a new cruse of salt. 
Thence he returned by the way he had followed with Elijah to 
Bethel; and at this seat of the calf- worship of Jeroboam, he received 
an insult which is thus related by one familiar with the spot. The 
road to the town winds up the defile of the Watly Suiceinit under the 
"hill which still bears what, in all probability, are the ruins of Ai, 
and which, even now retaining some trees, was at that date shaded 
by a thick forest, the haunt of savage animals. Here the boys of the 
town were clustered, waiting, as they still wait at the entrance of the 
villages of Palestine, for the chance passer-by. In the short-trimmed 
locks of Elisha, how were they to recognize the successor of the 
prophet, with whose shaggy hair, streaming over his shoulders, they 
were all familiar ? So, with the licence of the Eastern children, they 
scoff at the new-comer as he walks by, " Go up, roundhead ! go up, 
roundhead ! " For once Elisha assumed the sternness of his master. 
" He turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name 
of Jehovah, and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and 
tore forty-and-two children of them." There is nothing to show that 
these " children " were too young to be responsible for their wanton- 
ness, which was probably meant to try whether the new prophet 
might be more safely insulted than his predecessor. From Bethel 
Elisha returned to Carmel, and thence he went to dwell at Samaria, 
being fully recognized as the new prophet. 

Jehoram (abbreviated Joram), the ninth king of Israel, 
B c 896 . 

Mas the son of Ahab and Jezebel, and the successor of his 

brother Ahaziah. His accession is marked by a twofold date — in the 




MOSES BEFORE PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER. 



390 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 391 

eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and the second year 
of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, that is, the second year of Jeho- 
ram's association with his father in the kingdom. He reigned twelve 
years at Samaria. He maintained a close alliance with Judah, and it 
was perhaps by the influence of Jehoshaphat that he was a shade 
better than his father and his brother. He removed Ahab's image of 
Baal, but he still maintained the idolatries of Jeroboam. 

The defeat of Ahab at Ramoth, and the consequent dominion of 
the Syrians in the country east of Jordan, had encouraged Mesha, the 
king of Moab, to revolt from Israel, and to refuse his annual tribute 
of 100,000 lambs and 100,000 rams. Ahaziah's illness had pre- 
vented him from taking the field, but Jehoram applied for help to 
Jehoshaphat, through whose territory it was now necessary to march 
to reach Moab on the east, by way of the wilderness of Edom. The 
King of Edom, the vassal of Judah, joined the expedition. After a 
seven days' march through the desert, the armies were without water. 
The pious Jehoshaphat longed to consult a prophet of Jehovah, and 
it was found that Elisha, the son of Shaphat, " which poured water on 
the hands of Elijah," was in the camp of Israel. It was only after 
sternly bidding Jehoram to resort to the prophets of his father and 
mother that Elisha consented, for the sake of Jehoshaphat, to give an 
answer. He called for a minstrel, and as he played, the spirit of Je- 
hovah came upon the prophet. Bidding them dig trenches all over 
the plain, he promised that God would give them not only water, but 
a complete victory over Moab. In the night the trenches were dug, 
and at the time of the morning sacrifice water flowed into them from 
the hills of Edom, so that the whole plain looked like a lake. As 
the Moabites advanced to meet the enemy, the red rays of the rising 
sun, reflected from the water, threw a hue of blood on the whole 
plain. They remembered the recent slaughter which they had shared 
with the Ammonites and Edomites, and thought that the allied 
armies had been destroyed by a like panic, and raised the cry, " Now, 
therefore, Moab, to the spoil !" Rushing in disorder upon the camp, 
they were met by the whole army, and were pursued into their own 
country with immense slaughter. The victory was followed up by 
an exterminating war. The cities of Moab were razed, and their 
stones thrown into the corn-fields ; the wells were filled, and the fruit- 
trees were cut down. The only refuge left was the city of Kir-hara- 
seth ; and even this was on the point of being taken by storm, when 
the King of Moab, with 700 chosen warriors, tried to cut his way 
through to reach the King of Edom, but he was driven back into the 



392 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

city. He resorted to the forlorn hope of his horrid superstition. 
Mounting the wall, in sight of the besiegers, he offered his eldest son 
and heir as a burnt-offering to Moloch. It would seem that this act 
of despair roused the sympathy of the Edomites, as well as the horror 
of Jehoshaphat : " There was great indignation against Israel ; and 
they departed from him, and returned to their own land :" and the 
next we hear of the relations between the allies is the revolt of Edom 
from the King of Judah. 

To Elisha's aid in this war may probably be ascribed those friendly 
relations between Jehoram and the prophet, which belong to the his- 
tory of the latter. Indeed, the deeds of Elisha filled the greater part 
of the annals of Israel under Jehoram. We need not repeat here the 
simple and familiar narrative of his multiplying the oil of a prophet's 
widow, to save her and her two sons from the hard creditor ; the hos- 
pitality he received from a great lady of Shunem, to whom a son was 
first granted at the prophet's prayer, and by the same prayer her dead 
son was brought to life again; his healing of the poisoned pottage for 
the sons of the prophets at Gil gal ; his multiplication of the twenty 
barley-loaves and ears of corn for the famished people of that place ; 
and his causing the iron axe-head that had fallen into the Jordan to 
swim to the surface. The exquisite narrative of the healing of Naa- 
man's leprosy, and the punishment of Gehazi's covetousness, brings 
us back to the affairs of the state, and shows Israel harassed by pre- 
datory incursions from Damascus, and the King of Syria issuing his 
mandates in a tone which the King of Israel bitterly resents. During 
these incursions Jehoram was saved more than once by the warning of 
Elisha from being taken prisoner by the Syrian bands. Enraged at 
being thus baffled by the prophet, who, as a courtier told the King 
of Syria, could " tell the King of Israel the words that thou speakest 
in thy bed-chamber," Benhadad sent a great force to seize him at 
Dothan. During the night the Syrian chariots encompassed the base 
of the hill, on which the ruins of the city still stand, and in the morn- 
ing Elisha's terrified servant came to tell him that they were sur- 
rounded. The young man's eyes were opened at the prophet's prayer, 
and he saw the whole mountain full of chariots of fire and horses of 
fire, guarding his master; the oft-quoted emblem of those bands 
wherewitti " the angel of Jehovah encampeth round about them that 
fear Him and delivcreth them." As the Syrians drew near, they 
were struck blind, and Elisha led them to Samaria, where he restored 
their sight. By his command the King of Israel fed them and sent 
them home again, and the result was a cessation of the predatory 
attacks from Syria. 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 393 

Thus far we see Jehorara, who had put down the worship of Baal, 
upheld against all his enemies by the power of Jehovah through the 
friendship of Elisha. But now comes a great change, which we can- 
not well be wrong in ascribing to his relapse into the idolatry which 
we find restored at the close of his reign. Not yet, however, is he 
forsaken by God. His great enemy presses him harder than ever : Sa- 
maria suffers a siege, unequalled in horror till the final catastrophe of 
Jerusalem : the king vents his rage upon Elisha, who had probably 
foretold the visitation ; but the cruel purpose of " this son of a mur- 
derer," as the prophet terms him, is rebuked by Elisha's prophecy of 
the plenty that is to visit the famished city on the morrow — a 
prophecy fulfilled by the panic flight of the Syrian host during the 
night. No incident in Scripture history is more picturesque than the 
despairing visit of the four lepers to the deserted camp. " If we sit 
still here, we die ! If they save us alive we shall live ; and if they 
kill us, we shall but die !" The date of these events may be fixed, 
with great probability, to the fifth year of Jehoram's reign ; on the 
assumption that his last seven years coincided with the seven years' 
famine foretold by Elisha, probably as another visitation for the 
king's apostasy. And now the time was come for the judgments, 
long since revealed by God to Elijah, to fall upon all the chief actors 
in the horrid drama of which the family of Ahab is the centre, and 
Jezebel their evil genius ; on that house itself, on its enemy Benha- 
dad, and its allies of the apostate family of David, to whom we must 
now turn, to understand their share in the catastrophe. 

Jehoram, the fifth king of Judah, seems to have reigned 
in conjunction with his father for about three years. We 
have seen how the necessity of this supposition is involved in the 
date assigned to his namesake of Israel ; and it is expressly stated 
that Jehoshaphat was still King of Judah when his son Joram began 
to reign, at the age of thirty-two, in the fifth year of Joram, king of 
Israel. He reigned eight years at Jerusalem. Through his ill-fated 
marriage with Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, he 
thoroughly imbibed the spirit of that evil house. He set up the 
worship of Baal in the high places, and prostituted the daughters of 
Judah to the infamous rites of Ashtoreth. His reign would have 
been the last of the Jewish monarchy, had not God remembered his 
covenant with David, and forborne to cut off his house. But he was 
visited with judgments only short of such a catastrophe. Elijah's 
last public act was to send him the letter we have already mentioned, 
predicting his death by a loathsome disease, and the destruction of his 



394 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

whole house. The latter was a fit retribution for his own atrocity to 
his father's house. Jehoshaphat had placed his six younger sons in 
fortified cities of Judah, besides giving them large presents in gold, 
silver, and jewels, while he gave the kingdom to Jehoram. But as 
soon as Jehoshaphat was dead, Jehoram murdered all his brothers — 
the first example of that abominable mode of avoiding a disputed 
succession. The first calamity of his reign was the revolt of Edoin. 
Marching with his whole force, he got hemmed in by the Edomites ; 
and, though he extricated himself by a successful night attack, the 
province was lost. Edom became again an independent state under 
its own king, as Isaac had predicted ; and though, fifty years later, 
Amaziah overran the country, took Petra, and massacred many of 
the people, they were never again subjugated to Judah. Next came 
the revolt of Libnah, a fortified city of Judah, perhaps one of those 
that had belonged to the princes, rising to avenge their murder. 
Then the kingdom was nearly overthrown by a great invasion of the 
Philistines and Arabians, who had been tributary to Jehoshaphat, and 
who now stormed and plundered the king's palace, and massacred 
or carried off all his wives and children except his youngest son 
Ahaziah. The last infliction was a loathsome and incurable disease 
of the bowels, of which he died, "and departed without being re- 
gretted." He was buried in the city of David, but not in the 
sepulchre of the kings, and no odors were burned at his funeral. 
He died in the twelfth year of Joram, king of Israel, and was suc- 
ceeded by his son Ahaziah. 

Ahaziah (properly Achaziah), the sixth king of Judah, 
was twenty-two years old at his accession, and reigned 
only one year. Being the son of Athaliah, daughter of Ahab, he was 
nephew to Jehoram, king of Israel, a conjunction which threatened 
the establishment of idolatry in both kingdoms; for Ahaziah was 
addicted to all the evil practices of the house of Ahab. But, as if 
the presence of Ahab's grandson on the throne of David had filled up 
the measure of God's forbearance, both kings were cut off by one 
stroke. Toward the end of the seven years' famine already men- 
tioned, Elisha was sent to Damascus to designate Hazael, a high 
officer at the court of Benhadad II., as the future king of Syria. 
There is something strange in this appointment of a heathen king, 
the murderer of his master, and the cruel enemy of Israel, by the 
prophet of Jehovah. Nor was Elisha himself insensible of this, for 
he shed tears of grief and shame as he thought of the work to which 
Hazael was ordained. He was appointed by God the minister of his 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 395 

providence to execute his wrath on the house of Ahab ; and so Cyrus, 
as the destroyer of Babylon and the restorer of Judah, is called " the 
anointed of Jehovah," though he knew him not. Benhadad was 
lying ill, when he heard of Elisha's coming; and he sent Hazael, 
with presents that loaded forty camels, to inquire of the man of God 
about his recovery. The reply was an enigma, suited not to suggest, 
but to unveil the treacherous thoughts of Hazael. "Tell him he 
may recover" — his illness is not mortal — "but Jehovah hath showed 
me that he shall die," said the prophet, with a look that made Hazael 
blush for shame. Then, with a burst of grief, the prophet foretold 
the cruelties that would be inflicted on God's people by Hazael, who 
exclaimed, " What, is thy servant a dog, that he should do these 
monstrous deeds ? " "And yet he did them," says one of our old 
divines, pointing the moral lesson for all ages. Elisha replied by 
plainly announcing that Hazael should be king of Syria. Then 
followed the catastrophe, of which history gives many other examples, 
and which our great poet has idealized in the tragedy of Macbeth, 
when ambition plunges men into crime under the specious pretext 
of destiny. Hazael gave Benhadad the assurance that he should 
recover, and the next day he suffocated him with a cloth dipped in 
water, and usurped the kingdom. 

It was probably amid the confusion of this change of 
dynasty that Jehoram, king of Israel, with Ahaziah as his 
ally, took possession of B-amoth-gilead, the scene of Ahab's death. 
Jehoram Avas wounded in a battle with the Syrians, and returned to 
Jezreel to be healed, and Ahaziah soon afterward went to visit him. 
Their absence from the army gave the opportunity for their destruc- 
tion. Elisha sent one of the sons of the prophets to Ramoth-gilead 
to anoint Jehu, son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi, one of the cap- 
tains of the army, to be king of Israel, according to the word of God 
to Elijah. Calling Jehu out of the court where the captains w r ere 
assembled into an inner room, the prophet discharged his office and 
then fled. Jehu returned to his comrades, and, after trying to pass 
off the visit as a madman's freak, he told them what had happened. 
This was the signal for revolt. The captains spread their cloaks as a 
carpet of state on the top of the stairs which mount from the inner 
court of an eastern house to the roof; there they placed Jehu in sight 
of the army, blew the trumpets, and shouted " Jehu is king." Afttt 
taking precautions to prevent any one leaving Ramoth-gilead to carry 
the news, Jehu mounted his chariot and drove headlong to Jezreel. 
The approach of his party was announced by the watchman, ami 



39G HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Joram sent out a horseman to meet them. To the question, " Is it 
peace?" Jehu answered, "What hast thou to do with peace? turn 
thee behind me!" A second messenger was seen to follow Jehu in 
the same fashion. By this time they were near enough for the 
watchman to recognize Jehu by his furious driving, the sign of his 
impetuous character. Joram ordered his chariot in haste, and went 
forth with Ahaziah. They met Jehu at a fatal spot, the field of 
Xaboth the Jezreelite. Jehoram, who, perhaps, still thought that 
Jehu had come with tidings from the army, a^ain asked, " Is it 
peace?" " What peace," retorted Jehu, "so long as the whoredoms 
of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?" Crying to 
Ahaziah, " there is treachery," Joram fled ; but an arrow from Jehu's 
bow entered his back and came out through his heart, and he fell 
dead in his chariot. Then Jehu reminded Bidkar, his charioteer, 
how they had ridden together behind Ahab when Elijah laid upon 
him the burden of judgment at that spot, and bade him cast Joram's 
body into the plot which his father had seized by Xaboth's murder, 
to be devoured by the dogs, while he himself rode on to Jezreel to 
execute vengeance upon Jezebel. Even then the spirit of the aged 
queen, who had defied Elijah in the hour of his triumph, did not quail. 
In her royal head-dress, and with painted eyebrows, she looked down 
from the latticed window of her palace on the city wall, and saluted 
Jehu with the taunt, "Had Zimri peace, who slew his lord?" But 
she too had traitors in her palace; and, at the call of Jehu, two or 
three of her eunuchs dashed her down from the lattice. Her blood be- 
spattered the city wall, and Jehu drove his chariot over her mangled 
corpse, which was left in the space before the city into which offal is 
thrown from the walls to be devoured by the dogs. It was not till 
Jehu had sat down to feast with his comrades that he bade some of 
his soldiers to " go and see after the cursed woman and bury her, for 
she was a king's daughter." They went, and found that the dogs had 
left nothing but her skull and feet, and the palms of her hands. Her 
fate recalled to Jehu's memory the words of Elijah concerning her, 
which he repeats with even greater minuteness than the original histo- 
rian, so strong an impression had they made upon him. Thus 
perished this remarkable woman, distinguished above all the other 
monsters of her sex for never having betrayed a feeling of remorse. 
Her name is used by St. John as a type of the worst form of spiritual 
wickedness, and after-ages have made it a proverb. There were still 
scventv sons of Ahab left at Samaria : and Jehu sent letters to their 
governors and to the elders of Samaria, ironically challenging them to 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 397 

set up one of the seventy for king. On their promising submission, 
a second letter ordered them to bring him the heads of all the seventy 
to Jezreel on the morrow. They were brought and piled in two 
heaps on each side of the gate, and when the people assembled in the 
morning, Jehu appealed to them, " I conspired against my master 
and slew him, but who slew all these ?" — thus committing them to a 
full share in the massacre. All that remained of the family of Ahab 
in Jezreel were hunted down and slain, with the officers of the court 
and the priests. Jehu then went to reside at Samaria. At the 
shearing-house beside the road he met forty-two of the kinsmen of 
Ahaziah coming on a visit to Jezreel, in evident ignorance of these 
events. All were seized by his order and slain at the well of the 
shearing-house. Proceeding on his way, Jehu met Jehonadab, the 
son of Kechab, who was afterward famous as the founder of the ascetic 
sect of the Rechabites. After mutual assurances that their hearts 
were " right," Jehu invited the zealot to mount the chariot and wit- 
ness his zeal for Jehovah. Arrived at Samaria, he finished the 
slaughter of the house of Ahab, and then planned with Jehonadab 
one crowning act of zeal to destroy the worship of Baal at a stroke. 
He declared that " Ahab served Baal little, but Jehu shall serve him 
much/' and proclaimed throughout Israel a solemn assembly for Baal 
in the temple which Ahab had built at Samaria. The worshippers of 
Baal took the bait, and assembled to a man. As if to give more 
dignity to the festival, but in reality to mark the votaries of Baal, he 
had them clothed in the sacred vestments, and himself went into the 
temple with Jehonadab, to charge the Baalites to see that no servant 
of Jehovah remained to pollute the ceremony. Eighty men were 
stationed at the gates to prevent escape at the peril of their own lives. 
The sacrifices were offered, and the orgies of the feast had begun, 
when Jehu gave the signal to the guards, who rushed in and slew the 
Baalites, and cast out their bodies to the dogs and vultures. They 
then stormed the fortified sanctuary ; they broke to pieces the great 
stone statue of Baal, and burned the other images, razed the temple 
to the ground, and assigned its site to the vilest uses. Amid all the 
sins of the later kings of Israel, the worship of Baal was never 
openly restored. 

The fate of the King of Judah is variously related. 
b c 884 . . . 

According to the account in the Chronicles, he fled to 

Samaria when Joram was killed, was found hidden there, and was 
brought to Jehu, who put him to death, but granted him an honora- 
ble burial from respect to the memory of Jehoshaphat. The narra- 



398 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

tive in Kings certainly conveys the impression at first sight that Jehu, 
after mortally wounding Joram, turned to pursue the King of Judah 
(a step improbable in itself, and inconsistent with the rest of the same 
narrative), and that Ahaziah was mortally wounded at the pass of 
Gur, near Ibleam, and died when he reached Megiddo. This pursuit 
may have taken place in consequence of his being pointed out to Jehu 
while attempting to escape from Samaria, but we cannot expect to 
clear up every difficulty in such brief and ancient histories. This 
much is clear, that his body was carried to Jerusalem and buried in 
the sepulchre of the kings. 

One member of the house of Ahab was still left, his daughter 
Athaliah, the queen-mother of Judah, and the heir to her mother's 
fierce and dauntless spirit. By her means it seemed as if the Baal- 
worship, destroyed in Israel, was to be restored in Judah. On hear- 
ing of her son's death, she slew all the royal seed of Judah except 
Joash, the youngest son of Ahaziah, a new-born infant, who was hid- 
den by his aunt Jehoshabeath, the daughter of Jehoram, and wife of 
the high-priest Jehoiada. Athaliah usurped the crown for six years, 
which may be passed over, for they are barren of events, to finish the 
story of the house of Ahab. She does not seem to have brought over 
the people to idolatry ; for it was the regular order of the Temple-ser- 
vice that enabled the high-priest to effect the revolution by which 
Joash was restored. 

In the seventh year Jehoiada took counsel with five "captains of 
hundreds," by whose means the Levites and heads of houses were as- 
sembled from all the cities of Jerusalem to swear allegiance, in the 
Temple, to the sole remaining scion of the house of David, a child 
seven years old. It was the custom on the Sabbath for the guard of 
priests and Levites to divide themselves into three bodies, of whom 
one kept the doors of the Temple, another the gate called "Sur" (or 
"the gate of the foundation"), while the third were on duty at the 
royal palace. To avoid suspicion, the last occupied their usual post, 
but the other two-thirds formed a close line across the court of the 
altar round the person of Joash, armed with spears and David's sac- 
red shields, with orders to cut down any who should attempt to enter, 
while the rest of the people were in the outer court. When all was 
prepared, Joash was brought forward and crowned with full cere- 
mony. 

The acclamations of the people reached the ears of Athaliah, who 
hastened to the Temple, and found the king standing by the entrance 
amid the princes, the trumpets blowing and the singers praising God. 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, TO AHAB. 399 

She rent her clothes and cried out "Treason !" But Jehoiada com- 
manded the five captains to carry her out of the Temple, and to cut 
down any who tried to follow her ; and they slew her at the entrance 
of " the horse-gate " by the royal palace. Jehoiada then renewed the 
covenant, as in the time of David, of the people and the king with 
each other and Jehovah. The Temple of Baal was razed, the idols 
destroyed, and his priest Mattan slain before his own altar. The ser- 
vice of the Temple was arranged according to the order prescribed by 
David. The king was brought in solemn procession from the Tem- 
ple through the great gate to the royal palace, and set upon the 
throne of Solomon. By the death of Athaliah the last member of 
Ahab's house had perished : " all the people of the land rejoiced, and 
the city was quiet." 



400 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XXI. 

THE KINGDOMS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL— CONTINUED FROM THE DESTRUCTION 
OF THE HOUSE OF AHAB, TO THE CAPTIVITY OF THE TEN TRIBES. 

[b. c. 884-721.] 

*"^EHU, the tenth king of Israel, reigned twenty-eight years, and 

founded the fourth dynasty which consisted of five kings, but 

§ fpB lasted a much longer time than Omri's, namely, 111 years. 

3^? This prolongation of his dynasty was expressly granted as the 

reward of his zeal against the house of Ahab. Nor was this 

all. Under the house of Jehu, Israel became almost as great as she 

had been immediately after the disruption. Jehoash, the grandson of 

Jehu, entered Jerusalem as a conqueror. He also drove 
b c 884 . 

back the Syrians, and his son Jeroboam II., recovered the 

eastern frontier from Hamath to the Dead Sea. Jehu, however, be- 
came heedless of God's law, and declined into the sins and idolatry of 
Jeroboam. From his reign began the loss of those territories which 
had been first occupied in the conquest of the land. u Jehovah began 
to cut Israel short." Hazael overran the whole land of the two and 
a- half tribes, in Gilead and Bashan, east of the Jordan, as far south as 
the Arnon. Such are the few brief records of Jehu's long reign. 
He died and was buried at . Samaria, and was succeeded by his son 
Jehoahaz. 

In Jehu's reign we are brought into contact for the first time, at 
least since the mention of Chedorlaomer and his allies, with the great 
monarchies of Western Asia. The British Museum possesses an 
obelisk of black basalt, brought by Mr. Layard from Ximroud, which 
was set up by Shalmaneser I., king of Assyria, to- commemorate 
his victories. It appears that, while Benhadad II. and Hazael were 
warring against Israel, they had to sustain a conflict with Assyria ; 
and among the tributaries to Shalmaneser appears the name of " Jehu 
(or Yahua), the son of Khumri " (Omri). The erroneous patronymic 
is accounted for by Omri's being regarded as the founder of the king- 
dom of Samaria, the name of the city itself appearing on the obelisk 
in the form " Beth-khumri n (house of Omri). 

ftrfi Jehoahaz, the eleventh king of Israel, and the second 

of the house of Jehu, succeeded his father in the twenty- 



FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 401 

third year of Joash, king of Judah, and reigned seventeen years in 
Samaria. He followed the sins of Jeroboam, and suffered from con- 
stant and unsuccessful wars with the kings of Syria, Hazael and his 
son Benhadad III. So low was Israel reduced that Jehoahaz was 
only suffered to maintain a force of fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and 
10,000 foot. " The King of Syria had destroyed them, and had made 
them like the dust by threshing." Still God did not withdraw all 
his compassion from them, for the sake of his covenant with Abraham ; 
and in answer to the prayers of Jehoahaz, he raised up deliverers for 
them in this king's son and grandson, Jehoash and Jeroboam II. 
Jehoash seems to have reigned two years in conjunction with his father. 
The death of Jehoahaz was simultaneous with that of Joash, king of 
Judah, and very little before that of Hazael, king of Damascus. 

Joash (abbreviated from Jehoash), the eighth king of 
Judah, was the youngest son of Ahaziah, the sixth king, 
and of Zibiah, of Beersheba. In the year B. c. 884 he was left appa- 
rently the sole survivor of the stem of David, lopped as it had been 
by repeated massacres. Jehoshaphat's sons were all slain by their 
eldest brother Jehoram. All Jehoram's sons were killed by the 
invading Philistines and Arabians except Ahaziah. Ahaziah's col- 
lateral kindred were put to death by Jehu, and his sons were all 
massacred by their grandmother Athaliah except Joash, whose escape 
and elevation to the kingdom we have already related. He was 
proclaimed in the seventh year of Jehu, being himself seven years 
old, and he reigned forty years at Jerusalem. For the first twenty- 
three years and more he kept his piety, and enjoyed high prosperity, 
under the guidance of his early guardian, the high-priest Jehoiada. 
His reign began, as we have seen, with the destruction of the idols, 
and the renewal of the covenant of Jehovah, but the people still wor- 
shipped in the high places. In conjunction with Jehoiada, Joash 
undertook the reparation of the Temple, which had not only been 
plundered of its vessels for the service of Baal, but injured in its 
fabric, during the reign of Athaliah. The king's zeal was not satisfied 
with the progress made by Jehoiada and the priests in using the free 
contributions of the people, and there seems even to be a charge of 
peculation against the Levites. So the king constructed the first 
" money-box " in the well-known form of a chest with a hole in the 
lid, which was placed at the gate of the Temple for offerings, and 
each day its contents were counted by the king's officers and handed 
over at once to the artificers. This was done in the twenty-third 
year of Joash : the repairs of the Temple were soon finished, and 
26 



402 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

there was enough money left to provide vessels for the service of the 
sanctuary. The money brought for trespass and sin-offerings be- 
longed to the priests. 

The order of the Temple-service was maintained during the life of 
Jehoiada, the high-priest, who died at the age of 130, and was buried 
among the kings, for his services to the house of God. A most un- 
happy change ensued. The princes of Judah, who had doubtless 
been jealous of the high-priest's unbounded influence, seem to have 
persuaded the king that it was time to be his own master ; and the 
first use that he and they made of this new liberty was to neglect the 
house of Jehovah, and to serve groves and idols. But not without 
warning and remonstrance. At this point of the history occurs that 
remarkable passage which introduces the line of prophets whose wri- 
tings remain to us, and who began to appear about this time, Elisha 
being still alive : — " Yet He sent prophets unto them, to bring them 
again unto Jehovah ; and they testified against them : but they would 
not give ear." ^ay, more, by adding to their sins the blood of the 
martyr whom Christ names with " righteous Abel n — both victims to 
the passion that knows the truth and hates it — they made themselves 
a type of the generation that slew the Lord. The Spirit of Jehovah 
came upon Zechariah the son Jehoiada, and probably high-priest, who 
told them that they could not prosper, because they had forsaken God; 
and even in the court of the sanctuary, which they were, perhaps, at- 
tempting to profane by a sacrifice to Baal, they stoned him to death, 
by the king's order, between the Temple and the altar. This was 
the very space within which Joash had been guarded by Jehoiada 
and his line of Levites ; and the narrative lays stress on the king's 
ingratitude to the son of the man who had saved his life. The dying 
cry of Zechariah, " Jehovah look upon it, and require it," never 
ceased to echo through the annals of the Jews, till they " filled up the 
measure of their fathers " by invoking the guilt of Christ's blood 
upon their heads. Meanwhile, it found an immediate response in the 
calamities of the last years of Joash. 

Hazael, the king of Syria, had overrun the trans-jordanic pro- 
vinces of Israel during the disastrous reign of Jehoahaz, which began 
about the time that Joash finished the restoration of the Temple, and 
was now drawing to a close. After a campaign against the Philis- 
tines, Hazael marched toward Jerusalem. His small force defeated 
the whole host of Judah ; and the princes, who had seduced Joash 
into idolatry, were either killed in the battle or given up to Hazael 
and put to death, as the ransom of the people from massacre. Jeru- 



FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 403 

salem itself was only saved from the horrors of a sack by the surrender 
of all the consecrated vessels and treasures both of the Temple and 
the king's palace. Thus, within a year of the murder of Zechariah, 
" they executed judgment upon Joash." Scarcely, had the Syrians 
retired, leaving Joash grievously ill in the fortress of Millo, whether 
from a wound or from vexation (for the cause is not stated), than he 
was slain in his bed by two of his servants, of Ammonite and Moabite 
extraction, at the age of forty-seven. Thus ended a reign that had 
promised to restore the purity of David's kingdom. Joash was 
buried with his fathers in the city of David, and was succeeded by 
his son Amaziah. He died in the same year as Jehoahaz, king of 
Israel. 

And now it seemed as if God had sufficiently punished the personal 
faults of the first kings of both the restored monarchies ; for a new 
era of prosperity began for Israel and Judah under Jehoash and Ama- 
ziah, the histories of whose reigns are closely interwoven. 

Jehoash (or Joash), the twelfth king of Israel, and the 
third of the line of Jehu, began to reign, in conjunction 
with his father Jehoahaz, in the thirty-seventh year of Joash, king of 
Judah (b. c. 841), and alone two years later (b. c. 839) ; his entire 
reign lasted sixteen years. There is an apparent discrepancy between 
his character and his actions. It would seem as if the calf-worship 
of Jeroboam had become so inveterate in Israel that a king who 
practised it might yet be chosen as a deliverer from foreign oppression 
if he did not serve Baal ; or it may be that God willed to give Israel 
a final opportunity of restoration, irrespective of the character of the 
king, "and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his 
presence as yet." We find Jehoash received with favor when he visi- 
ted Elisha upon his death -bed, and he mourned over him in his own 
words when he lost Elijah, " O my father ! my father ! the chariot of 
Israel, and the horsemen thereof !" The prophet assured him of vic- 
tory over the Syrians by significant actions. He bade him shoot an 
arrow from the open window toward Syria, and himself laid his hands 
with the king's upon the bow, as if to give divine power to the shot, 
which he called "the arrow of Jehovah's deliverance from the 
Syrians," who were to be smitten in Aphek. Then he bade the king 
strike the ground with the arrows. The three strokes signified three 
victories ; and the prophet was angry with the king for not striking 
five or six times, as he would then have consumed them utterly. The 
whole was a parable of the co-operation of human effort with the 
divine counsels. It was fulfilled by three great victories which Jeho- 




404 



FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 405 

ash gained over Benhadad III., the son of Hazael, and by which he 
recovered the cities which Hazael had taken from his father. Mean- 
while Elisha died, and a last miracle was wrought by his remains. 
A man was about to be buried in the same rock in which the pro- 
phet's sepulchre was hewn, when the bearers were alarmed by the 
approach of one of the predatory bands of Moabites that now infested 
Israel. They thrust the body hastily into the first open tomb in the 
face of the rock. It was that of Elisha, and upon touching his re- 
mains, the dead man came to life and stood upon his feet. All these 
events happened in the early years of Jehoash. The other great 
event of his reign was the conquest of Jerusalem, which is related 
under the reign of Amaziah. He died, and was buried in the royal 
sepulchre at Samaria, and was succeeded by his son Jeroboam II., 
the greatest king of Israel. 

Amaziah, the ninth king of Judah, was twenty-five 
years old when he succeeded his father Joash, in the second 
year of Jehoash, king of Israel, and he reigned twenty-nine years at 
Jerusalem. His mother was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. His was a 
mixed character, like his father's : — " He did that which was right 
in the sight of Jehovah, but not with a perfect heart " — " not like 
David his father ;" and the people still sacrificed in the high places. 
He put his father's murderers to death, but spared their children, in 
obedience to the law of Moses — an act of clemency which is recorded 
probably because it was then unusual. He prepared a great expedi- 
tion for the recovery of Edom, which had revolted from Jehoram. 
To the whole force of Judah and Benjamin, numbering 300,000 
warriors of twenty years old and upward, he added 100,000 picked 
men of Israel, whom he hired for 100 talents of silver. But, at the 
command of a prophet, he dismissed these mercenaries, who returned 
in anger, and sacked several of the cities of Judah. Meanwhile 
Amaziah advanced into the " Valley of Salt " (the Ghor), south of 
the Dead Sea, and there defeated the Edomites, with the slaughter of 
10,000 men. Ten thousand more were dashed to pieces from the 
rocks of Sela (Petra), the Idumsean capital, which Amaziah took, and 
called Joktheel (Possession of God). To assert the more strikingly 
his dominion over the country, Amaziah sacrificed to the idols of 
Mount Seir ; and he silenced the reproof of a prophet with threats 
and with the taunt, "Art thou made of the king's counsel ? " "I 
know," rejoined the prophet, " that God hath determined to destroy 
thee;" and misfortune filled up the rest of Amaziah's reign. Whether 
urged on by arrogance, or provoked by the conduct of the disbanded 



406 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

mercenaries, he sent a challenge to the King of Israel. Jehoash 
replied by a parable : — "A thistle in Mount Lebanon demanded the 
daughter of the cedar in marriage ; but a wild beast that was passing 
by trod on the thistle and crushed it : let not the King of Judah 
boast because he had smitten Edom, but stay quietly at home, lest 
he and Judah should perish together." Amaziah persisted, and the 
armies met at Beth-shemesh. Judah was utterly defeated, and 
Amaziah taken prisoner. Jehoash led him in triumph to Jerusalem, 
the north wall of which he broke down from the gate of Ephraim 
to the corner gate, a space of 400 cubits ; and having taken all the 
treasures of the temple and the palace, besides hostages, he returned 
to Samaria, where he died not long after. Amaziah survived 
Jehoash fifteen years, seemingly of continued declension, till his 
government became so hateful that he had to fly for his life from a 
conspiracy formed against him at Jerusalem. He was overtaken 
and killed at Lachish. His body was borne back by horses to Jeru- 
salem, and buried with the kings. He was succeeded by his son 
Uzziah (misnamed Azariah). 

Jeroboam II., the thirteenth king of Israel, and the 
B c 825 . 

fourth of the house of Jehu, succeeded his father Jehoash 

in the fifteenth year of Amaziah, and reigned forty-one years at 
Samaria. His reign is by far the most prosperous in the annals of 
Israel. To him even more than to his father is the statement ap- 
plied that, in Israel's decline, God gave them a saviour, in remem- 
brance of his covenant with their fathers ; though he also followed 
the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. He not only recovered from 
Syria the whole district east of the Jordan from Hamath to the Dead 
Sea, and reconquered Ammon and Moab, but he attacked Damascus 
itself; and if he did not actually take the city, he regained a large 
part of its territory for Israel. The apparent ease of these conquests 
may be explained by the sufferings of Syria from the constant attacks 
of the great Assyrian Empire, now at the height of its power. The 
same prophet who had predicted the recovery of the cities of Gilead 
and Bashan from Syria, Jonah, the son of Amittai, of Gath-hepher, 
■was sent by God to the great city of Nineveh. There is no more 
striking proof of the moral grandeur of the religion of Jehovah than 
this mission of a solitary prophet from the petty kingdom of Israel to 
warn the great monarch of Western Asia that he and his city should 
perish unless they repented before God. The brevity of the narrative 
leaves us in doubt whether the repentance required had respect to the 
vices which corrupt a great and luxurious city, or to some specific 



FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 407 

evil. We can hardly suppose that it was the idolatry, which had 
long been a part of their national customs, and which was certainly 
not abandoned in consequence of Jonah's preaching, that incurred the 
threat of immediate destruction of this particular time. Looking at 
the recent inroads of Assyria upon Syria, nothing seems more proba- 
ble than that Israel would be next attacked ; and having regard to 
the repeated statements of God's forbearance with Israel at this crisis, 
when " Jehovah said not that he would blot out the name of Israel 
from under heaven " — " He would not destroy them, neither cast he 
them from his presence as yet " — the mission of Jonah might well be 
to bid the King of Assyria desist from such an enterprise. In its 
moral aspect it would then be analogous to the mission of Moses to 
Pharoah — " Touch not mine anointed, and do my people no harm ;" 
and the repentance of the King of Assyria would be, not a religious 
reformation, of which history gives no evidence, but the abandonment 
of a purpose which displeased a divinity whom he had learned to 
reverence, whether as the supreme deity or as the God of Israel : in 
one word, he yielded on the very point on which Pharaoh hardened 
his heart, and said, " I know not Jehovah." This view strengthens, 
instead of weakening, the deeper meaning of the transaction, as 
pointed by our Saviour : — " The men of Nineveh repented at the 
preaching of Jonas :" — though they were heathens, and only saw in 
him the messenger of an " unknown God," they believed his word, 
and yielded to his demands as God's : — " but a greater than Jonas is 
here :" you, as Jews, know me to be the Messiah spoken of by the 
prophets, and yet you resist God in resisting me ! 

As to the motive of Jonah's reluctance to undertake the mission, 
and his disappointment at its result, which some have ascribed to his 
jealousy of Nineveh as a future enemy to Israel, surely that would 
have spurred his zeal to denounce her destruction, so that the two 
parts of the explanation hardly cohere. The popular view seems 
truer that his feelings were personal in both cases : in the first, " the 
fear of man ;" in the second, displeasure at his prediction having 
seemed to fail, as is clearly implied by himself. The story itself, as 
recorded in the short book which bears the prophet's name,' is too 
familiar to need repeating. The narrative is simple and consistent: 
its truth is endorsed by the express testimony of our Saviour ; and 
the objections simply resolve themselves into a disbelief in miracles 
at all. One needless difficulty has been raised by the use of the word 
"Avhale" in our version of the New Testament in place of the "great 
fish," as it is correctly given in the old ; and then the climate of the 



408 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Mediterranean and the anatomy of the whale are triumphantly ap- 
pealed to in disproof of the whole story. But idolatry itself bears 
witness in the worship of Dagon to the fact, which naturalists have 
proved, that there are sharks in the Mediterranean quite capable of 
swallowing a man whole. On the other hand, we find incidental 
allusions which no impostor would have dared to insert. The pro- 
phet's three days' journey through the city is not only now known to 
be consistent with the vast area covered by the scattered houses and 
gardens of the great cities of the East, but has been confirmed by the 
space over which the remains of Nineveh extend; and the vast 
population implied by its 600,000 persons of tender years has several 
parallels both in ancient and modern Asia. The prophetic character 
of the book, though its form is narrative, is seen in the use made of 
it by our Lord, as an example of repentance in a heathen nation, and 
a sign of his own three days' abode in the earth. Nay, " the sign of 
the prophet Jonas " must have been, even without an interpretation, 
a striking emblem of the resurrection, the doctrine of which is clearly 
implied in one passage of Jonah's " prayer to God out of the fish's 
belly :" — " The earth with her bars was about me forever : yet hast 
thou brought up my life from corruption, O Jehovah, my God." 

Jeroboam II. died in B. c. 784, and was buried with the 
-0V77Q kings of Israel, and we are told, according to the usual 
formula, that " Zachariah his son reigned in his stead " 
— the fourteenth king of Israel, and the fifth and last of the dynasty 
of Jehu. But a little further on it is said that Zachariah began to 
reign in the thirty-eighth year of Azariah (Uzziah), and reigned six 
months in Samaria. Since the forty-one years of Jeroboam expire in 
the twenty-seventh year of Uzziah, there must either have been, as 
Ussher supposes, an interregnum of eleven years, or there must be 
some error in the numbers. An interregnum is scarcely credible 
during the lifetime of a king of whose exile and captivity we hear 
nothing; and the first text seems clearly to imply Zachariah's imme- 
diate succession to his father. The other explanation involves the 
correction of the numbers in the second text by reading twenty-eight 
for thirty-eight, and ten years and six months for six months ; or else 
the prolongation of Jeroboam's reign for ten years and six months, in 
which case the forty-one years of his reign will not require alteration, 
for Zachariah may have been associated with him at the end of the 
forty-one years, in B. c. 784, while his separate reign of six months 
would fall in B. c. 773. This view is supported by, and tends to re- 
move a difficulty from, the title of the prophecies of Hosea, which 









FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 409 

places the prophet " in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Heze- 
kiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, 
king of Israel." Now from the last year of Jeroboam (b. c. 784) to 
the first of Hezekiah (b. C. 726) is close upon sixty years, and if we 
add at each end a sufficient time to make the prophet nourish under 
each of these kings, the result is hardly credible ; but the addition of 
ten or eleven years to Jeroboam's reign brings it within the compass 
of probability, and accounts for the omission of Zachariah's name. 

Of Zachariah himself we are only told that he walked, like his 
fathers, in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. He died the vic- 
tim to a conspiracy by Shallum, the son of Jabesh, who usurped the 
crown in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah. Thus ended the dynasty 
of Jehu, having lasted 111 years; and the promise was fulfilled, that 
his descendants should reign to the fourth generation ; and so also 
was the prophecy of Amos against Jeroboam. A civil war now en- 
sued, as in the time of Omri. 

Shallum, the fifteenth king of Israel, had enjoyed his 
usurpation only a month when he was overthrown and 
killed, like Zimri, by another competitor, Menahem, the son of Gadi, 
who marched from Tirzah and took Samaria. It seems probable that, 
like Omri, Menahem was a general of the murdered king. Another 
incident of the civil war was the sack ot Tiphsah, a city which refused 
to open its gates to Menahem, with the most horrid cruelties of war. 

Menahem, the sixteenth king; of Israel, and his son 
b c 772 i . 

Pekahiah, the seventeenth king, compose the fifth dynasty, 

which lasted only twelve years. Of these, Menahem began to reign 
in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah, and reigned ten years, with the 
character which now becomes a formula, " He departed not all his 
days from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat." The great point 
of interest in his reign is the first direct attack upon Israel by the 
Assyrians — a presage of the catastrophe which was finished fifty 
years later. The steps of the process have often been repeated in his- 
tory. The first danger is averted by^a bribe, which only serves as a 
temptation to new aggression. Each new attack leaves the doomed 
state weaker and weaker, till it is reduced to tribute ; and at last a 
despairing effort to shake off the yoke brings down destruction. The 
King of Assyria who began the attack on Israel under Menahem is 
named Pul, and is the first Assyrian king mentioned in Scripture. 
But there are indications that this was not the first contact between 
Assyria and the kingdoms of Palestine. We have seen that Jehu 
appears as a tributary on the black obelisk of Shalmaneser I., and it 



410 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

would seem that Menahem had neglected to apply to the King of 
Assyria for the usual "confirmation of his kingdom." Menahem 
submitted, and paid Pul 1000 talents of silver, as the price of his 
confirmation, which he exacted by a forced contribution of fifty 
shekels apiece from the rich men of Israel. The name of the king, 
who is supposed to correspond to Pul, is read on the Assyrian monu- 
ments (though very doubtfully) as Vul-lush or Iva-lush. He 
reigned at Calah (Nimrud) from about B. c. 800 to B. c. 750 ; warred 
against Syria, and took Damascus ; received tribute from the Medes, 
Armenians, Phoenicians, Samaritans, Damascenes, Philistines, and 
Edomites ; and w T as the last of the older dynasty of Assyrian kings. 
His successor, Tiglath-pileser, was a usurper. Menahem's name ap- 
pears on an obelisk of the latter, perhaps by mistake. 

Pekahiah, the son of Menahem, was killed, after a 
b c 761 

reign of only two years, by Pekah, the son of Remaliah, 

and the eighteenth king of Israel, whose reign of twenty years is 

closely interwoven with the history of Judah. His league with Hezin, 

king of Syria, against Judah, and the consequent destruction of the 

kingdom of Damascus, and captivity of a large part of Israel, are 

related under the reign of Ahaz. He was put to death by Hoshea, 

who succeeded him as the last king of Israel. 

To this period of Jeroboam II. and his successors belong the pro- 
phets Amos and Hosea, whose writings aid us in filling up the brief 
narrative of Kings by the light they throw on the internal condition 
of the state, the prevalence of idolatry, the maintenance of "the king's 
sanctuary " at Bethel under its priest Amaziah, who tried to silence 
Amos, and the almost universal dunkenness, licentiousness, and 
oppression. 

Amos prophesied the judgments of God upon the surrounding 
nations, and upon Israel itself; and, in particular, the destruction of 
the house of Jeroboam by the sword, and the captivity of the people. 
Amaziah accused him of conspiring against Jeroboam, and bade him 
to betake himself to Judah, his native country ; but he did not shrink 
from predicting the full restoration of the house of David, while he 
promised the ultimate return of Israel from captivity, and their final 
establishment in their land. His probable date is about the middle 
of Jeroboam's reign. 

The prophecies of Hosea are addressed almost equally to Israel 
and Judah, whose dissensions are deeply deplored, their captivity 
foretold, and their final restoration promised. With respect to Israel, 
we are especially struck by the same tone of affectionate, nay, agoniz- 



FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 411 

ing forbearance, which we have had occasion to notice repeatedly in the 
sacred narrative of the period. Like a father in the last struggle of 
nature against necessity, Jehovah dwells upon the good points in the 
character of Ephraim, the heir of Jacob's favorite son, before He will 
consent to cast him off as incorrigible, and the same spirit is shown to 
Judah. 

Uzziah, the tenth king of Judah, was set on the throne 
b. c. blO. j^ ^ p e0 pi e ^ a f ter tne mur d er f his father Amaziah, in 

the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam II. He was then sixteen years 
old, and reigned for the long period of fifty-two years. His mother 
was Jecholiah of Jerusalem. He was contemporary with nearly half 
the reign of Jeroboam II., with Zachariah, Shallum, Menahem, and 
Pekahiah, and the last year of his reign was the first of Pekah's. 
He was one of the ablest of the kings of Judah, serving Jehovah and 
enjoying unbroken prosperity, till he profaned the Temple, though 
still the high places were not removed. Like his grandfather Joash 
in relation to Jehoiada, he was at first under the influence of Zecha- 
riah, a prophet " who had understanding in the visions of God." 
He began his reign by recovering and rebuilding Eloth (^ZElana : 
Akabah), the old port of Solomon and Jehoshaphat, at the eastern 
head of the Red Sea. His successful wars restored Judah nearly to 
the power she had possessed under the latter king. He received 
tribute from Amnion, and subdued the Philistines, razing the fortifi- 
cations of Gath and Ashdod, and building fortresses throughout their 
country. The Arabs of the southern desert, whom we have seen, with 
the Philistines, first as tributaries and then as enemies of Judah, were 
reduced to the former condition. Towers were built and wells were 
dug, both in the maritime plain (Shefelah) and the Idumsean desert 
(Arabah), for the king's numerous flocks : and he had husbandmen 
and vine-dressers in the plains about Carmel (in the south) and in 
the mountains. While thus improving the resources of his country, 
Uzziah made preparations for its defence, whether against Israel, 
Syria, or Assyria. Pie repaired the wall of Jerusalem, which had 
been broken down after his father's defeat by Jehoash, building 
towers at the corner gate, and the valley gate, and the angle of the 
wall. He armed the fortifications with newly-invented military en- 
gines, the first of which we read in Jewish history, like the balista 
and catapult, for shooting arrows and great stones. He kept on foot 
an army of 307,500 men " that made war with mighty power," under 
2600 captains, " the chief of the fathers of the mighty men of valor," 
with Hananiah as commander-in-chief. They went forth to war by 



412 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

bauds, the roll of which was kept by the king's scribe, Jeiel, and the 
ruler of his house, Maaseiah. By the care of Uzziah, all the soldiers 
were armed with spears and shields, helnients aud coats of mail, bows 
and slings. " And his name spread far abroad, for he was marvel- 
ously helped, till he was strong." But, deprived probablv of the 
counsel of Zechariah, he could not bear his prosperity. In his arro- 
gance, he claimed the functions of the priests; not those which we 
have seen always exercised by judges and kings, of offering burnt 
sacrifices, but those which belonged exclusively to the sons of Aaron. 
He entered into the Holy Place to burn incense on the golden altar. 
He was followed by the high-priest Azariah, with eighty of the most 
courageous of the priests, prepared to resist the profanation by force. 
.The high-priest reproved the king with all the boldness of his office, 
and warned him to leave the sanctuary, predicting that dishonor 
would befall him. What reply or deed Uzziah meditated in his rage, 
we are not told ; but as he stood, censer in hand, there rose with the 
flush of anger to his forehead the spot of leprosy, the sign of his ex- 
clusion even from the court of the house of God. When the priests 
saw it they thrust him out ; nay, he himself was so struck with the 
judgment that he hastened from the sanctuary. He remained a leper 
to the day of his death, secluded in a separate house, according to 
the directions of the law, while the government was committed to 
his son, Jotham. When he died, he was not received into the sepul- 
chre of the kings, but buried in a field attached to it. His life 
was written by the prophet Isaiah, as well as in the Chronicles of 
Judah. 

Jotham, the eleventh king of Judah. was twenty-five 
years old when he succeeded his father Uzziah, in the 
second year of Pekah, king of Israel, and he reigned sixteen years at 
Jerusalem, having been previously regent about seven years. His 
mother was Jerushah, the daughter of Zadok. He was one of the 
most pious and most prosperous of the kings ; but the people grew 
more and more corrupt. He carried on his father's works, both in 
peace and war. He built the high gate of the Temple, and the tower 
called Ophel on the city wall, fortified cities in the mountains of 
Judah, and castles and towers in the forests. War was renewed with 
the Beni-ammi, who were compelled to pay him an annual tribute of 
100 talents of silver, 10,000 measures of wheat, and 10,000 of barley. 
'" So he became mighty, and established his ways before Jehovah his 
God." Toward the close of his reign, Rezin, king of Damascus, 
began, in alliance with Pekah, king of Israel, those attacks on 






FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 413 

Judah, which proved so disastrous under the reign of Jotharn's weak 
successor Ahaz. 

Ahaz, the twelfth kins: of Judah, succeeded his father 

b c 742 . 

in the seventeenth year of Pekah, king of Israel, and reigned 

sixteen years at Jerusalem. He departed entirely from the virtues of 
the last three kings, and plunged into all the idolatries of the surround- 
ing nations, making molten images for Baal, and sacrificing his child- 
ren to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom, besides offering sacrifice in 
the high places, on every hill, and under every green tree. His 
punishment quickly followed. The war already begun by Pekah 
and Rezin was vigorously prosecuted, with a view to set on the throne 
of Judah a creature of their own, the son of Tabeal. The order of 
the events that followed is obscure. Ussher supposes two campaigns, 
in the first of which the invaders were repelled, while in the second 
they were more successful. But it is not likely that they could lay 
siege to Jerusalem before they had forced the strongholds built by 
Uzziah and Jotham, and the story of the war in Isaiah seems to refer 
to only one series of events. It was therefore most probably on the 
march to Jerusalem that the allies defeated Judah, with the slaughter 
of 120,000 men, in a great battle, in which a champion of Ephraim, 
named Zichri, slew Maaseiah, the king's son, and two of his chief 
officers ; and on their retreat they carried off 200,000 women and 
children from the cities which were now left undefended. 

Their attack upon Jerusalem was unsuccessful, chiefly in consequence 
of the spirit infused into the people by Isaiah. To this epoch belongs 
the celebrated prophecy in which the birth of the child Immanuel, 
whose very name expressed the devout confidence, " God is with us," 
was a sign of the speedy overthrow of both the hostile kings by 
Assyria. A second sign was given by the birth of a child who re- 
ceived the significant name of Maher-shalal-hash-baz, " Make speed to 
the spoil ! hasten to the prey ! " And, in that exalted style of preg- 
nant meaning, which has given Isaiah the name of " the evangelic 
prophet," these passing wars are dignified by the most glowing pro- 
phecies of the Messiah's kingdom. 

It is a melancholy comment upon some of the grandest passages of 
Scripture that they seem to have made no lasting impression on the 
king to whom they were delivered. His persistence in sin insured 
the continuance of God's judgments. It would seem that Pekah and 
Rezin retired from Jerusalem by different routes. While the latter 
took from Judah the lately recovered part of Elath and <^avc it to the 
Edomites, the former returned toward Samaria with his miserable 



414 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

captives. The dying glory of Israel burns up with an expiring flame 
in the deed of mercy that followed. The prophet Oded went out to 
meet the army, reproved them for their purpose of enslaving the 
children of their brethren, and commanded them to restore the captives. 
The appeal touched the heart of the princes of the people, and they 
refused to let the prisoners be brought within their borders. The 
soldiers left them in their hands, and arrangements were at once made 
for their relief. They were fed and anointed, clothed and shod from 
the booty, the feeble were placed on asses, and so they were conducted 
to Jericho and delivered to their brethren. 

The retreat of Pekah and Rezin gave Ahaz no permanent relief. 
In the words of Isaiah, God had raised up against him the Syrians in 
front (the East), and the Philistines behind (the West). They overran 
the whole maritime plain (Shefelah) and the highlands that border it, 
taking Beth-shemesh, Ajalon, and other cities. The Edomites, set 
free by the Syrians, invaded Judah and carried off many captives, 
while the Syrians and Israelites threatened to return. Ahaz now 
applied for help to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, against Syria 
and Israel ; declaring himself his vassal, and sending him all the treas- 
ures that were left in the Temple, the royal palace, and the houses of 
the princes. The " Tiger Lord of Asshur n marched first against 
Damascus, which he took, killing Rezin, and transporting the inhab- 
itants to Kir, as Amos had foretold. Thus ended the great Syrian 
kingdom of Damascus, after a duration of about 235 years. Israel 
was stripped of the whole country east of the Jordan, and the tribes 
of Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh at length reaped the fruit of their 
hasty desire to have the first settlement in the land by being the first 
who were carried into captivity. Their fate was shared by their 
brethren in Galilee, but the captivity of these northern tribes was only 
partial. Ahaz gained little by the intervention of his too powerful 
ally, who, says the narrative, " helped him not." He went to meet 
the Assyrian king at Damascus: we know not what hard conditions 
were imposed upon him, but we are told that in the time of his dis- 
tress he trespassed yet more against Jehovah ; for he saw at Damas- 
cus an altar, which he impiously resolved to imitate at home. He 
sent its pattern to Jerusalem, where LTrijah the high-priest prepared 
an altar of the same form against the king's return from Damascus, 
when, with a profanity on which Athaliah even had not ventured, 
Ahaz put it in the place of the brazen altar, and commanded Urijah 
to offer on it all the burnt-offerings and other sacrifices. Superstition 
led him, however, to preserve the brazen altar for oracular uses, and 



FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 415 

he placed it on the north of his great altar. The great brass sea of 

Solomon was dismounted from its supporting oxen, and the lavers 

from their bases, which were sent to the King of Assyria, together 

witli the coverings which had been built for the king's entry to the 

house and for the shelter of the worshippers on the Sabbath. The 

golden vessels of the house of God were cut in pieces and sent with 

the rest, and the sanctuary itself was shut up ; while idol altars were 

erected in every corner of Jerusalem, and high places in every city of 

Judah. It was not for want of provocation to Jehovah that Judah 

did not at once share the captivity of Israel ; but for the sake of " the 

sure mercies of David n another respite was given, and a new era of 

godliness throws its light over the reign of Hezekiah, amid all the 

pressure of invasion and the threats of approaching captivity. 

Hezekiah, the thirteenth king: of Judah, succeeded his 
B c 726 . . 

father Ahaz in the third year of Hoshea, the nineteenth 

and last king^ of Israel. He was twenty-five years old, and reigned 
twenty-nine years at Jerusalem. His mother was Abi (or Abijah), 
the daughter of Zechariah. His character is marked by the com- 
mendation which has not been repeated since Jehoshaphat, " He did 
that which was right in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that 
David his father had doneP The son of Sirach reckons him, with 
David and Josiah, as the only three kings who did not forsake the 
law of the Most High ; and the historian gives him this panegyric, 
" He trusted in Jehovah, God of Israel ; so that after him was none 
like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before 
him." 

In the very first month of his reign he began the reformation of 
religion by reopening and repairing the doors of the Temple, which 
had been closed by Ahaz, and cleansing the sacred edifice. The 
details of the work and of the sacrifices that followed, with the 
exhortations of the king to the priests and Levites, are related at 
length in the Chronicles. Then follows the account of the great 
Passover (the first recorded since the time of Joshua), which was kept 
in the second month, for the reason expressly allowed in the law, the 
ceremonial impurity both of priests and people in the first month. 
The king had sent posts through all Israel as well as Judah to invite 
the people to return to God, that he might return to the remnant 
who were escaped from the King of Assyria, and be merciful to those 
who had been carried captive. The message was treated with general 
contempt ; still, many came, not only from Ephraim and Manasseh, 
but from the distant tribes of Issachar, Zebulun, and Asher, to unite 



416 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

with their brethren of Judah, to whom God had given one heart to 
obey him. Several of these visitors being still unpurified, the paschal 
lambs were slain by the Levites for the people ; and Hezekiah im- 
plored pardon for those who ate the Passover otherwise than according 
to the law, but whose hearts were prepared to seek the God of their 
fathers. The seven days of the feast were doubtless much interrupted 
through these causes, as well as by the occupation, to which the people 
zealously applied themselves, of destroying the idol altars throughout 
Jerusalem. By the spontaneous impulse of the worshippers, the feast 
was prolonged to fourteen days, amid such joy as had not been seen 
in Jerusalem since the time of Solomon, and God heard their prayers. 
Departing to their homes, they broke to pieces the idols, cut down 
the groves, and threw down the high places and altars through 
Ephraim and Manasseh, as well as through Judah and Benjamin, 
while the king arranged the service of the Temple. One instance of 
consummate wisdom, mingled with Hezekiah's zeal against idolatry, 
deserves to be especially mentioned. The brazen serpent, which 
Moses had lifted up in the wilderness, had long been an object of 
worship, not only as the memorial of a great deliverance, but proba- 
bly in connection with the serpent-worship prevalent in the East. 
Xo regard for so curious a relic of their early history prevented 
Hezekiah from breaking it in pieces like any other idol and speaking 
of it as only " a piece of brass " (Nehushtan). We can well believe 
that this phrase was addressed to the " scornful men," certain rulers 
at Jerusalem, probably the old friends and counsellors of Ahaz, of 
whose opposition we learn from Isaiah, the king's great supporter and 
counsellor by the word of Jehovah. The head of this party was 
Shebna (probably a foreigner), who seems to have been degraded, 
at the instance of Isaiah, from the office of treasurer to that of scribe 
(or secretary), the former post being conferred on Eliakim, the son of 
Hilkiah. 

The reunion of the people in the fear of God infused new life into 
their national policy. The Philistines, who had made such inroads 
during the last reign, were beaten back again as far as Gaza with 
great slaughter. Trusting in God's protection, Hezekiah even ven- 
tured to refuse the tribute which his father had paid to the King of 
Assyria. The momentous character of such a step at the existing 
crisis will be seen by turning to the history of the kingdom of Israel. 
If it was taken after the overthrow of Samaria, or even after the 
beginning of the siege, it might seem to have been the height of 
rashness. But it was more truly one of those acts of "considerate 



FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 41 T 

courage" by which nations are rescued in their extremity; and, 

with prudence on the part of Hoshea, it might have proved the 

salvation of both kingdoms. The revolt may be safely placed about 

the third year of Hezekiah (b. c. 724). 

Hoshea, the son of Elah, the nineteenth and last kins; 
b c 730 i . 

'of the separate kingdom of Israel, had conspired against 

Pekah and killed him " in the twentieth year of Jotham, the son of 
Uzziah," by which we must understand the twentieth year from 
Jotham's accession, which is the fourth of Ahaz. But he was not 
established in the kingdom till the twelfth year of Ahaz (b. c. 730) • 
and there is no error in the numbers, since his seventh year was the 
fourth of Hezekiah (b. c. 723). The best chronologers (as Ussher) 
called the intervening nine years an Interregnum. Perhaps they 
should rather be regarded as a struggle of Hoshea, at the head of a 
reform party against the idolaters and enemies of Judah, the party to 
which the late king belonged. That such a reform party existed may 
be inferred from the noble scene related above of the restoration of 
the Jewish captives, and from the response made to Hezekiah's 
invitation to the Passover. Its rise may be accounted for by the 
earnest pleadings of the prophets, and especially of the new king's 
namesake, Hosea, whose aifecting pleas for union cannot have been 
entirely unheeded. The character ascribed to Hoshea agrees with 
this hypothesis. Though, corrupted by the long prevalence of idol- 
atry and wickedness, "he did evil in the sight of Jehovah," the 
record is qualified by the addition, " but not as the kings of Israel that 
were before him." We have seen the freedom with which the posts 
of Hezekiah traversed his kingdom, and with which the worshippers 
from Israel went up to Jerusalem ; nor do we read of any opposition 
to their zealous destruction of the idols and altars in Ephraim and 
Manasseh. In fine, Hoshea's revolt from Shalmaneser seems to have 
been no less an act of patriotism than Hezekiah's, though not 
prompted by such purely religious motives. Hoshea was, in fact, 
the best king in the whole line from Jeroboam. 

Nor ought we to be surprised that the final catastrophe 
b< c. 726. ... 

came in his reign. Speaking humanly, the state was past 

redemption ; the utter corruption and impenitence of the people are 
attested by the denunciations of Hosea, and confirmed by their scorn- 
ful rejection of Hezekiah's call to repentance and union. Even the 
king was only some shades better than his predecessors, and it was 
no partial reform that could save and renew the state. Viewing the 
case from the higher ground taken throughout the Scripture history — 
27 



418 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the inseparable connection between national prosperity or adversity 
and religious obedience or rebellion — we cannot say that it was too 
late for Israel to be saved ; as Sodom would have been, if five righte- 
ous men had been found in her ; as Nineveh was, when her people 
repented at the preaching of Jonah. They had only forty days of 
grace : Hoshea and his people had three years : let us now see how 
they used them. In the third year of Hoshea (b. c. 726) Shalmane- 
ser, who had succeeded Tiglath-pileser, in B. c. 730 marched against 
Hoshea to enforce payment of the tribute, the refusal of which, in the 
very year of Hezekiah's accession, is perhaps another proof of a com- 
mon feeling. The cruelties perpetrated at the storming of the fort- 
ress of Beth-arbel evidently belong to this campaign. Hoshea sub- 
mitted, and became tributary to Assyria. His second revolt is 
morally justified by patriotism; and even politically, the favorite test 
of success might not have been wanting, as we see in the case of Heze- 
kiah. But, in the religious point of view, it was an utter wrong and 
failure. Had Hoshea made common cause with Hezekiah, and 
thrown himself on the protection of Jehovah, we have a right to 
believe that the times of David might have returned. But Hoshea 
took the very course denounced by the law of Moses, reliance upon 
Egypt. The long contest had begun between the sovereigns of Egypt 
and Western Asia for the frontier province of Palestine, and both had 
their partisans at the court of Samaria. The King of Egypt, who is 
called So in the Scripture narrative, was either Shebek I., the Sabaco 
of Herodotus, or his son Shebek II., the Sevechus of Manetho. He 
belonged to the warlike xxvth (Ethiopian) dynasty, who opposed the 
progress of Assyria with all their force. Hoshea formed a secret 
league with him, and withheld the accustomed tribute from Shal- 
maneser ; who, informed of the conspiracy, seized the King of Israel, 
and shut him up in prison, where he was bound with fetters and 
treated with cruel indignity. His sudden destruction is compared by 
the prophet Hosea to the disappearance of the foam upon the water. 
The imprisonment of Hoshea clearly preceded the siege of Samaria : 
it may be that he was seized on a visit to Nineveh for the purpose of 
excusing his conduct. Shalmaneser then marched against Israel ; and 
after overrunning the country, laid siege to Samaria in the seventh 
year of Hoshea, the fourth of Hezekiah (b. c. 723). Then followed 
one of those memorable defences, the despairing efforts of dying 
nations. We have no details of the siege ; but Isaiah gives a glowing 
description of the mighty instrument of Jehovah smiting like a hail- 
storm the glorious beauty of the city, which towered on its hill like a 



FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 419 

crown of pride, the head of the fat valleys of the drunkards of Eph- 
raim. Its strong position enabled the city to hold out for three years, 
during which we learn from the Assyrian monuments that Shalmane- 
ser died and was succeeded by his son Sargon, a change not noticed 
in the Scripture narrative, which, after the first mention of Shalmane- 
ser, only speaks of the " King of Assyria.'' The city was taken in 
the ninth year of Hoshea, the sixth of Hezekiah. Sargon himself 
records the capture of Samaria in the following terms : — " Samaria I 
looked at, I captured " (like Caesar's vidi, vici) ; " 27,280 men (or 
families) who dwelt in it I carried away." According to the Scrip- 
ture narrative, he " carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them 
in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and the cities of the 
Medes." This deportation of the people extended to Samaria and its 
dependent towns, a region small in comparison to the original king- 
dom of the ten tribes. The region east of Jordan had already been 
so treated by Tiglath-pileser, who had also carried away the northern 
tribes, but not to the same extent ; for a remnant were left, who formed 
the nucleus of the mixed population of the later Galilee. The 
cities in the south of Ephraim, which had been attached to Judah by 
conquest, or by the bond of religion under Hezekiah, probably shared 
the fortunes of the southern kingdom. The removal was of that 
complete character, which we have seen in the case of Damascus, and 
which was frequently practised by the conquerors of Western Asia. 
The process is compared to the act of " wiping out a dish and turn- 
ing it upside down." Josephus states that the King of Assyria 
"transplanted all the people." These statements, which have the 
most important bearing on the national character of the later 
" Samaritans," are confirmed in various ways. Not a word is said of 
any remnant, as in the case of the captivity of Judah, when " the 
poor of the land were left to be vine-dressers and husbandmen ;" nor, 
if such ^a remnant had been left, could the new population have been 
so ignorant of " the manner of the God of the land " as to need one 
of the captive priests to be sent from Assyria to teach them to fear 
Jehovah. The ten tribes never returned to their land as a distinct 
people : and the contrast between their fate and that of Judah in both 
these points marks the favor of God to the house of David, and to 
the people who never entirely cast off his worship* 

Thus ended the kingdom of Israel, after a duration of 
b c 721 . 

just 255 years, under nineteen kings and seven dynasties, 

not reckoning among the latter the ephemeral usurpations of Zimri 

and Shallum. The last two of these dynasties perished with their 



420 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

founders, Pekah and Hoshea : three, those of Jeroboam, Baasha, and 
Menahem, had two kings each : the house of Omri numbered four 
kings in three generations : Jehu's, the longest of all, reigned for five 
generations from father to son, and all its kings died a natural death 
except the last, Zachariah. Of the other kings, only Jeroboam I., 
Baasha, Omri, Ahaziah, and Menahem had the same lot; the rest 
were slain by traitors or in battle, or died in captivity. Their charac- 
ter was even worse than their fate. Not one in the whole list is com- 
mended either for morality or piety : all were idolaters, and traitors 
to Jehovah. Even the zeal of Jehu ended in idol-worship, and the 
patriotism of Hoshea was marred by disloyalty to God. 

The end of the kingdom of Israel involves two questions of great 
interest — the fate of the captives who were carried away, and the con- 
dition of the country after their removal. Respecting the first point, 
we have had the statement of their transplantation to certain districts 
of Assyria and Media, where we almost lose sight of them. Nor is 
this surprising. The gradual contraction of the limits of the Samaritan 
kingdom suggests, what the inscription of Sargon confirms, that the 
numbers carried captive at last were far less considerable than is com- 
monly supposed. Their absorption in the surrounding population 
would be aided by their long addiction to the practices of idolatry, 
and the loss of reverence for their religion involved the absence of 
care for the records of their national existence. As they furnished no 
confessors and martyrs, like Daniel and " the three children," so 
neither did they preserve the genealogies on which Judah based the 
order of the restored commonwealth. But yet their traces are not 
utterly lost. The fact that a priest was found among them to teach 
the Samaritans to fear Jehovah, proves that they maintained some 
form of worship in His name. The book of Tobit preserves the 
record of domestic piety among captives of the tribe of Naphtali. 
The first Jewish exiles, who were carried away by Sennacherib, seem to 
have been settled in the same districts as their brethren of Israel, on 
whom their influence would be salutary ; and, after the great captivity 
of Judah, it is most interesting to see how continually Ezekiel addresses 
the captives by the name of Israel. The prophetic symbol of the rod 
of Judah and "the rod of the children of Israel, his companions" 
being joined into one, in order to their restoration as one nation, as 
Isaiah also had predicted, seems to imply that all that was worth pre- 
serving in Israel became amalgamated with Judah, and either shared 
in the restoration, or became a part of the "dispersion," who were 
content to remain behind, and who spread the knowledge of the true 




421 



422 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

God throughout the East. It is an important fact that St. James 
addresses the " dispersion " as " the twelve tribes." The edict of 
Cyrus, addressed to the servants of Jehovah, God of Israel, would 
find a response beyond the tribe of Judah ; and though none of the 
ten tribes appear, as such, among the returned exiles, there is room 
for many of their families in the number of those who could not prove 
their pedigrees. As for the rest, the very wildness of the speculations 
of those who have sought them at the foot of the Himalayas and on 
the coast of Malabar, among the Nestorians of Abyssinia and the 
Indians of North America, proves sufficiently the hopelessness of the 
attempt. Have then the promises of God concerning their restoration 
failed ? No ! they were represented, as we have seen, in the return 
of Judah ; and for the rest, though they are lost to us, " the Lord 
knoweth them that are His." We do not enter, in this work, into 
the controversy respecting the return of Israel to their own land. 
But of this there is no question, that when God. shall reveal " out of 
every nation, those who have feared God, and wrought righteousness," 
all the tribes of believers in Israel will be owned, in some especial 
manner, as His people. That this restoration will be not temporal, 
but spiritual, seems to be the plain teaching of St. Paul, in the 
passage which forms the great New Testament authority on the 
whole subject. 

We turn back to the condition of their deserted land, 
guarding first against the common error of confusing its 
limits with those of the old kingdom of the ten tribes. The final 
deportation by Shalmaneser (or Sargon), following upon that made 
by Tiglath-pileser, justifies our speaking of the captivity of the ten 
tribes ; but .the depopulation in the earlier captivity was much less 
complete than in the latter, at least on the west of Jordan. This has 
already been seen in the description of Hezekiah's reformation. It was 
only the region immediately round Samaria that was utterly depopu- 
lated. The description of its repeopling follows immediately upon 
the narrative of the Captivity in the second book of Kings ; but it is 
clear that there was a considerable interval. The new colonization is 
expressly ascribed to Esar-haddon, the grandson of Sargon, and " the 
great and noble Asnapper," either his officer, or a title of the king 
himself. This is confirmed by the fact that some of the colonists 
came from Babylon, which only became subject to Assyria under 
Sennacherib, the father of Esar-haddon. It is probable that the 
colonization was suggested by Esar-haddon's observation of the state 
of the country during his campaign against Manasseh, about B. c. 






FROM AHAB TO THE CAPTIVITY. 423 

678. It was effected by the usual Assyrian method of removing the 
whole population of other conquered cities or districts in a distant 
part of the empire, " from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava (or Ival), Hamath, 
and Sepharvaim," the three last being places mentioned among the 
conquests of Sennacherib. The new inhabitants imported their idola- 
trous worship ; and God showed his jealousy for His own land by 
plaguing them with lions, which had doubtless multiplied during 
nearly half a century of desolation. They inscribed the infliction to 
their ignorance of " the manner of the God of the land," and the 
King of Assyria sent back one of the captive priests, who established 
himself at Bethel, and " taught them how to fear Jehovah." His 
teaching was probably mixed with no little error, but it seems to have 
been free from the old idolatry of Jeroboam. The worship thus 
established was regarded by the people as merely local, and they none 
the less set up their own idols in the old high places of the Israelites : 
Succoth-benoth, the god of Babylon ; Nergal, Ashima, Nibhaz, and 
Tartak, the gods of Cuth, Hamarth, and the Arvites, while the 
Sepharvites burnt their children to Adram-melech. Priests were 
appointed for the high places from the lowest of the people. The 
compromise between their new religion and their old idolatries is thus 
summed up : " They feared Jehovah and served their own gods." 
The writer lays the greatest stress on their entire departure from the 
law of Moses, and concludes by stating that these practices were fol- 
lowed by " their children and their children's children : as did their 
fathers, so do they unto this day." 

These are evidently the words of a writer disowning all religious 
communion with the devotees of such degrading superstitions. The 
date to which they lead, their tone and spirit, and the part ascribed 
to Ezra in making up the Canon of the Old Testament, all point to 
their having been written by him at the time when these people were 
doing all they could to thwart the exertions of the restored Jews to 
build up the Temple and city of Jerusalem. They explain that long 
course of mutual hostility which the subsequent history develops, and 
which is summed up in the saying, " The Jews have no dealings with 
the Samaritans," not so much as to ask and receive a cup of cold 
water at a well-side in the noon-day heat of travel. 



424 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XXII. 

FROM THE END OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL TO THE END OF THE KINGDOM 

OF JUDAH. 

[b. c. 721-586.] 

HERE is a gap in the Scripture narrative, from the taking 
of Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah to the attack from 
Assyria in his fourteenth year (b. C. 721-713). But from 
an allusion in Isaiah as well as from the direct testimony 
of an ancient historian preserved by Josephus, we know how 
the King of Assyria employed the interval. It may seem strange 
that Sargon should not at once have marched to subdue Hezekiah. 
But he was evidently preparing for a more important cam- 
721- r "i 3 P a *S n > of which the reduction of Judah would be merely an 
incident, against Egypt, the ally of Hoshea, and the 
probable supporter of Hezekiah. To conduct such a war to a suc- 
cessful issue, and to accomplish a cherished object of Assyrian policy, 
it was necessary to secure the great port of Western Asia on the 
Mediterranean. Sargon overran Phoenicia and laid siege to Tyre, 
then at the height of its power, under its king Elulaeus. Having 
retired the first time without success, Sargon renewed the attempt, 
with the aid of sixty ships furnished by other Phoenician cities, as 
Sidon, Ace (Accho), and Palae-tyrus (old Tyre on the main land), 
whether from compulsion, or from jealousy of the island queen. This 
navy was defeated by the Tyrians, who had only twenty ships ; and, 
thus secured against a storm, they held out for five years (b. c. 
720-71 5) /with the same constancy that they afterward displayed 
against Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander, and probably with better 
success. The issue of the blockade is not recorded ; but, if it had 
been successful, "the gods of Tyre" would doubtless have been 
included in the boast of Rabshakeh. "We cannot be wrong in re- 
ferring to this occasion the prophecy of Isaiah against Tyre, warning 
"the merchant city" that though she had escaped this time, she was 
doomed to utter destruction. 

Sargon sent an army against Judah and Egypt, under a " Tartan " 
(or general) in the tenth year of his reign, which was the fourteenth 
of Hezekiah (b. c. 713). How this expedition affected Judah we do 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 425 



riot know, for in our present text it is manifestly confused with the 
celebrated incursion of Sennacherib several years later ; but it in- 
flicted a great blow on Egypt. While the Assyrian army was 
detained near the frontier by the siege of Ashdod, which probably 
belonged then to Egypt, Isaiah uttered his remarkable prophecy of 
the defeat and captivity of the Egyptians, which appears from Nahuru 
to have been soon fulfilled by the capture of Thebes (No-amon). We 
learn from Herodotus 
that Sebechus (the So 
who conspired with 
Hoshea) was succeeded 
by a priest of Vulcan 
(Phthah), whose neg- 
lect of the military 
caste reduced him to 
great danger in an in- 
vasion by the King of 
Assyria. 

About this time must 
have occurred the mor- 
tal illness of Hezekiah : 
" In those days was 
Hezekiah sick unto 
death," and Isaiah was 
sent to warn him of 
his approaching end. 
The record of his feel- 
ings, written by his 
own hand when he re- 
covered, is preserved 
for us by Isaiah in 
language highly poet- 
ical. In the same dis- 
mal tone as the patri- 
arch Job, he deplores 

the end of life but chiefly as the end of all opportunities for serving 
God : — " The grave cannot praise Thee ; death cannot celebrate Thee ; 
they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth. " He 
thought doubtless of his unfinished work, of the danger still im- 
pending over Judah, but, above all, of the Temple which he had 
restored, and where he had hoped long to worship God. He turned 




AN ASSYRIAN KING. 



426 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

his face to the wall, and prayed and wept sore. The prophet, who 
had but just left him, was sent back to promise that he should recover 
and go up to the house of God on the third day : at the same time he 
directed a poultice of figs to be laid upon the boil or carbuncle, for 
such was the king's disease. As was so usual with the Jews, Heze- 
kiah asked for a sign ; and the shadow of the sun went back ten 
degrees upon the dial of Ahaz, signifying a proportionate addition to 
the days of his life. But alas ! for the weakness of our nature, this 
deliverance engendered a rash confidence, which brought new judg- 
ments on Judah and Jerusalem. The news of Hezekiah's recovery 
brought an embassy of congratulation from Merodach-baladan, king 
of Babylon, a power which now appears for the first time. The 
ostensible object was to make inquiries respecting the astronomical 
marvel. But its real purpose was probably to form a league against 
Assyria. The kings of the lower Assyrian dynasty held Babylon by 
an insecure grasp, and Merodach was at the head of the party of 
independence. From the records of Sargon and Sennacherib we learn 
that he was twice expelled from his kingdom ; by the former in the 
twelfth year both of SargOn and of Merodach (b. c. 709), and by the 
latter in his first year (b. c. 702), when Merodach had only recovered 
his kingdom for six months. The embassy to Hezekiah falls during 
his first tenure of power ; and if its object be rightly understood, the 
King of Judah's eagerness to show the ambassadors his treasures 
would have another motive besides mere ostentation to prove his 
ability to enter on a great and dangerous war. "Whatever the motive, 
the display was made in a spirit of self-glorification, which called 
down a divine judgment ; and it must have been doubly bitter for 
Hezekiah to hear from Isaiah's lips that his kingdom w r as to fall a 
prey, not to Assyria, but to the very power whose alliance he was 
courting. There had already been several predictions of the captivity 
of Judah ; but this was the first distinct intimation of the quarter 
from which the judgment was to fall. Hezekiah humbled himself 
before God, and he was comforted by the assurance that the sentence 
should not be executed in his days. 

Up to the time of his mortal illness, Hezekiah seems to have been 
childless — a circumstance which would embitter his distress at the 
prospect of death. He now married Hephzibah, the daughter of a 
citizen or prince of Jerusalem, in whose name, which signifies delight- 
some, Isaiah traces a figure of the future glories of Jerusalem. The 
son born of this union received the name of Manasseh, which never 
occurs elsewhere in the history of Judah. The adoption of the name 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 42f 

of a rival tribe may be taken as a sign of the policy pursued by Heze- 
kiah, from the time of the destruction of Samaria, to rally the 
remnant of the ten tribes in a religious union with Judah. 

The remainder of Sargon's reign was fully occupied by 
B * C ' ' rebellions in the heart of his empire. Herodotus places 
the revolt of the Medes and Babylonians in B. c. 711. The former 
maintained their independence, and founded the power by which 
Babylon, after overthrowing Assyria, was herself subdued. As to 
the latter, we have seen that Merodach was expelled in B. c. 709 ; but 
his return at the death of Sargon proves the unsettled state of the 
province in the mean time. From both quarters Sargon must have 
had enough upon his hands for the rest of his reign. In b. c. 702 
Sargon was succeeded by his son Sennacherib (or Sanherib), a mon- 
arch as warlike and able as himself. After crushing the revolt of 
Merodach and placing Belib, a creature of his own, on the throne of 
Babylon, he undertook a great expedition against Judah and Egypt. 
This was the crisis of the history of the men of Judah to prove 
whether the religious revival under Hezekiah would inspire them 
with faith in God, or whether they would seek safety by forbidden 
means. There was a strong party in favor of an alliance with Egypt, 
the help of which they seem to have sought only to be repulsed with 
contempt. Isaiah vehemently denounces this party, and lays down 
the law — " Their strength is to sit still ;" " In quietness and confi- 
dence shall be your strength " — in a series of his most magnificent 
prophecies, describing the destruction of the Assyrian by super- 
natural means when he should encamp against Ariel (Lion of God), 
the city of David, the establishment of Messiah's kingdom, and the 
privileges of his people. These chapters stand in the book of Isaiah 
immediately before the history of Sennacherib's invasion, for which 
they were evidently designed to prepare the minds of king and 
people. The king proved worthy of such a prophet. Though he 
may have tampered with Egypt, a point on which we have no certain 
knowledge, and though he was driven to one act of disgraceful sub- 
mission, his faith revived in the supreme crisis. Encouraged by 
Isaiah, he committed his own and his people's safety to Jehovah, 
who wrought for them a deliverance as signal as the destruction of 
Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. 

The campaign was opened by an attack on the fortresses of Judah, 
of which several were taken. Isaiah describes the progress of Senna- 
cherib through Benjamin and the distress of the cities on his route. 
He was engaged in the siege of Lachish, a city in the southwest of 




428 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 429 

Judah (apparently with the view of securing the whole country tow- 
ard Egypt before attacking Jerusalem), when Hezekiah sent him a 
message of complete submission : — " I have offended ; return from 
me ; what thou puttest upon me I will bear." The Assyrian exacted 
a contribution of 300 talents of silver and thirty talents of gold ; to 
meet which, Hezekiah took all the silver vessels of the Temple and 
of his own palace, and cut off the gold with which he himself had 
overlaid the doors and pillars of the Temple, and sent it to Senna- 
cherib. 

But this spoliation was only a preliminary to the intended extirpa- 
tion of the Jewish people and the destruction of Jerusalem. Senna- 
cherib sent an army against Jerusalem under a Tartan (or captain), 
Rabsaris (the chief eunuch), and Rabshakeh (the chief cup-bearer), 
expecting apparently the surrender of the disheartened city without a 
siege. We are informed of the exact spot where the envoys stood to 
deliver their message, " the conduit of the upper pool in the highway 
of the fuller's field." Hezekiah sent to the conference the chief of his 
household, his secretary, and recorder. Rabshakeh, who acted as 
spokesman, asked on whom the King of Judah relied. Was it on 
Egypt, a broken reed, that would pierce the hand of him who leaned 
on it ? Was it on Jehovah ? — the God, said the orator, with a 
strange confusion of ideas, whose high places and altars Hezekiah had 
taken away. Nay, his master even claimed to have been sent up 
against Jerusalem by the word of Jehovah, referring probably to the 
prophecies of Isaiah. Thus far he had spoken in Hebrew ; but now 
the officers of Hezekiah entreated him to speak in the Syrian language, 
so as not to be understood by the people on the wall. " They," 
rejoined Rabshakeh, " are the very persons to whom I am sent, to 
warn them of the consequences of resistance." Then, raising his 
voice, he cried to the men upon the wall to come forth to make their 
peace with him, promising that they should be unmolested till he 
came again to remove them to a land as good as their own. Let 
them not listen to Hezekiah, persuading them that Jehovah would 
deliver them, but look upon the nations subdued before Assyria, and 
see if the gods of Samaria and the rest had delivered them out of his 
master's hand. The people, as Hezekiah had bidden them, returned 
no answer, and the servants of Hezekiah reported to him the words 
of Rabshakeh. He sent them to Isaiah, while he betook himself to 
prayer. The prophet replied that God took the blasphemies of Rab- 
shakeh as uttered against him, and predicted that, in consequence of 
a "blast" sent> upon him by God, and a "rumor" which he should 



430 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




ANCIENT SUNDIAL. 



B. C. 700. 



hear, the king would retreat to his own land, and there perish 
by the sword. 

Sennacherib had now left Lachish, probably having 
taken it, and his messengers found him besieging Libnah, 
a city in the same vicinity. The news of the approach of Tirhakah, 
king of Ethiopia, compelled him to postpone his revenge for the 
defiance of Hezekiah ; but he gave vent to his rage in a letter in the 
same tone as Rabshakeh's speech. Hezekiah spread the letter before 
God, with a solemn prayer to him to prove the difference between 
Jehovah, the only God, and the " no gods " whom the Assyrian had 
justly reproached; and the answer was given by the mouth of Isaiah 
in a sublime prophecy of the destruction of the Assyrian and the 
future glory of the remnant of Judah. On that very night the well- 
known catastrophe followed, not, as is too often supposed by cursory 
readers, before Jerusalem, which Sennacherib had never approached, 
but only " shaken his fist at her " from the distance. His army still 
lay before Libnah, not having even moved to meet Tirhakah, when 
in one night " the angel of Jehovah went out, and smote in the camp 
of the Assyrians 185,000 men." When the watchmen looked forth 
in the early morning, the plain was covered with their corpses. There 
is no doubt that some secondary cause was employed in the accom- 
plishment of this miracle. The Assyrians may have been suffocated 
by the hot wind of the desert, or they may have fallen by tens of 
thousands before " the pestilence that walketh in darkness." It is 
enough for us to remember that God, who at first " breathed into 
man's nostrils the breath of life," has the power, in a thousand ways, 
to "breathe" death on whom he pleases. Sennacherib himself re- 
turned into Assyria, and was there slain, as Isaiah had. foretold. But 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 431 

his death, which is mentioned at the end of the Scripture narrative, 
did not take place till some years later. He was murdered in the 
Temple of Nisroch by two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, 
who fled into Armenia, and was succeeded by another son, Esar- 
haddon, one of the most powerful of the Assyrian monarchs 
(b. c. 680). 

The fame of Hezekiah's deliverance brought him congratulations 
and presents from all the surrounding nations ; and the remainder of 
the days, which God's special grace had added to his life, were spent 
in prosperity and wealth. Like Uzziah, he possessed numerous 
flocks and herds, in addition to the treasures that he collected at 
Jerusalem. When he died, he was honored with the chief place in 
the sepulchres of the kings (b. c. 698). The glorious promise of his 
reign was terribly eclipsed under his successor. 

Manasseh, the fourteenth king of Judah, was only 
twelve years old when he succeeded his father Hezekiah, 
and he reigned fifty-five years (b. c. 698-643). But of this, the long- 
est reign in the annals of Judah, our accounts are extremely scanty. 
His reign was a period of fatal reaction in the religious policy of the 
State. We have seen indications that the idolatrous party, who had 
been triumphant under Ahaz, did not yield without a struggle to 
Hezekiah. Such a reform as that king wrought must have been in a 
great degree superficial among a people so corrupted as the testimony 
of the prophets proves that the Jews had now become. The princes 
of Judah, whose influence would naturally be great during the king's 
minority, have been seen more than once on the side of idolatry, espe- 
cially in the apostasy of Joash. It has been suggested that the policy 
which drew Hezekiah toward Babylon in the latter part of his 
reign may have had an evil influence over his young son. Certain 
it is that Babylonian superstitions are conspicuous among the 
religious errors of Manasseh, and his punishment came from the 
same quarter. 

Manasseh introduced every form of false religion and abominable 
vice that had ever been borrowed by Israel from heathen nations. 
He restored the high places, introduced the worship of Baal, and the 
obscene rites of Ashtoreth, and even went so far as to profane the 
Temple, by displacing the ark, and setting up an idol figure for wor- 
ship in the sanctuary. He also set up altars in the two courts of the 
Temple for the worship of the heavenly bodies. He built a stately 
temple to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom, and made his son pass 
through the fire to that god. He dealt with wizards and necromancers, 



432 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



and, in short, " seduced the people to do more wickedness than the 
nations whom Jehovah destroyed before them." 

This great apostasy was not consummated without warnings from 
the prophets who had flourished under Hezekiah. As the king and 
people had repeated the sins of Ahab, the prophets denounced the 
doom of Samaria on Judah and Jerusalem in the most striking figura- 
tive language. The king attempted to silence them by the fiercest 
persecution recorded in the annals of Israel. We are only told in the 
sacred history that Manasseh " filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, 
which Jehovah would not pardon ; " and that this was the crowning 
sin which doomed the nation to captivity. Fuller particulars of the 
persecution are preserved by Josephus, who tells us that executions 

took place every day. Its 
effect is thus described by 
Jeremiah : "Your own 
sword hath devoured your 
prophets, like a destroying 
lion." After the death of 
Isaiah, whom tradition 
makes the first victim of 
this persecution, the pro- 
phetic voice was no more 
heard till the reign of Jo- 
siah. 

These crimes were not 
long left unavenged. It 
is inferred from passages in 
the prophets of the next age 
that the Philistines, Moab- 
ites, and Ammonites, who 
had been tributary to Hezekiah, revolted from his son. But the great 
blow came from Assyria. Sennacherib's successor, Esar-haddon, one 
of the most powerful of all the Assyrian kings, soon put down 
the revolt of Evil-merodach and abolished the vice-royalty of 
Babylon, fixing his own residence at that city for about thirteen 
years (b. c. 680-667). Esar-haddon is the only Assyrian monarch 
whom we find to have actually reigned at Babylon, where he 
built himself a palace, bricks from which have been recently recovered 
bearing his name. This fact accounts for Manasseh being taken to 
Babylon, and not to Nineveh. To that city he carried Manasseh 
captive on a charge of rebellion ; and it would seem that Jerusalem 




MOLOCH. 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 433 

was taken at the same time. The date of this event is placed by a 
Jewish tradition at the twenty-second year of Manasseh (b. c. 677), 
which agrees very well with the account of the new colonization of 
the country of Samaria by settlers whom Esar-haddon (or Asnapper) 
sent from Babylon and other places. 

And now it seemed as if the time had come for the Baby- 
lonish captivity which Isaiah had foretold ; but, by a new 
proof of Jehovah's long-suffering with the house of David, the end 
was postponed for another century. The severity of Manasseh's im- 
prisonment brought him to repentance. God heard his prayer, and 
restored him to his kingdom at Jerusalem, where he again reigned 
long and prosperously. He removed the idols and their altars from 
the Temple and the city, repaired the altar and sacrificed upon it, and 
commanded the people to serve Jehovah. There was, however, no 
thorough reformation of religion ; the ark was not restored, and the 
people still sacrificed in the high places. At the same time Manasseh. 
put Jerusalem in a state of defence. He protected his weak side by a 
new wall " on the west side of Gihon, in the valley to the entrance of 
the fish-gate." He heightened the tower of Ophel, which Jotham had 
begun, and he placed garrisons in the fortified cities of Judah. That 
these proceedings were permitted by Assyria can be easily understood 
from the un warlike character of Esar-haddon's successor, Sardanapalus 
II., whose monuments confirm the character given to him by Greek 
writers. But they were doubtless also connected with the new 
position of Egypt, the history of which now emerges from its long 
obscurity. 

After the usurpation of the xxvth (Ethiopian) dynasty, and the 
anarchy of the " Twelve Kings," Psamatek (Psammetichus I.) founded 
a native dynasty (the xxvith, Saite) in B. c. 664, the thirty-fifth year 
of Manasseh. He at once renewed the old contest with Assyria, and 
took Ashdod, after a siege of twenty-nine years. We have already 
seen that there was a powerful Egyptian party in Judah, and the de- 
nunciations of the prophets, who began to prophesy under Josiah 
prove that it had gained great strength. The name of Manasseh's 
son, Amon, who was born about the time of the accession of Psam- 
metichus, though not incapable of explanation as a Hebrew word, 
points to a connection with Egypt. On these grounds it has been 
supposed that Manasseh sought the Egyptian alliance to strengthen 
him against Assyria. When he died, he was buried in the garden of 
Uzza, attached to his own house, and not in the sepulchres of the 
kings, and his memory is held in detestation by the Jews. 
28 



434 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Amox, the fifteenth king of Judah, succeeded his father at the age 
of twenty-two ; and after a reign of two years, during which he fol- 
lowed Manasseh's idolatries, without sharing his repentance, 
he fell the victim of a court conspiracy. The conspirators 
were slain by the people, who raised Josiah, the infant son of Anion, 
to the throne. Anion was buried with his father in the garden of 
Uzza. His mother was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of the 
town of Jotbah. 

Josiah, the sixteenth king of Judah, was eight years 
b c 639 • . 

old at his accession, and reigned thirty-one years at Jerusa- 
lem. His mother was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath. 
Though he fell in battle before he had completed his fortieth year, he left 
the brightest name for piety and religious zeal among all the successors 
of David. He shares with Hezekiah the praise of walking perfectlv 
in the way of his father David. His reign marks the last dying glory 
of the earthly kingdom of David. It may, indeed, seem mysterious 
that a doom, so often postponed by the repentance and faith of earlier 
kings, should have followed so close upon the reign of the best and 
most zealous of them all, and that he himself should have fallen by a 
premature and violent death. But we must look beyond the personal 
character of the king to the state of the people and their rulers. We 
have seen that the great reform of Hezekiah was probably superficial ; 
the apostasy under Manasseh and Amon was the last and lowest stage 
in the long course of national degeneracy ; and the deep corruption 
that prevailed during the minority of Josiah is drawn in the blackest 
colors by the prophets Zephaxiah and Jeremiah. The very vio- 
lence of Josiah's reformation indicates the absence of true and sponta- 
neous sympathy among the people. In short, they were past purifying 
except by the fiercest fires of affliction. 

Josiah must not be regarded as an example of the quiet growth of 
youthful piety under favorable culture. So evil were the influences 
about him that he only "began to seek after the God of David his 
father " in his sixteenth year. His religion was his own decided 
choice, as the first act of his opening manhood ; a choice prompted by 
that loyalty to his high calling as the son of David, which marks 
every act of his reign. Doubtless he was aided and encouraged by 
some among the priests, and by prophets, such as Zephaniah and Jere- 
miah; but it is a striking feature of his history, that the king himself 
is the prime mover in every act of reformation. In the twelfth year 
of his reign, at the age of twenty, he made a progress not only through 
Judah, but through those parts of Israel which we have before seen 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH 



435 



/■'!- 



recognizing Hezekiah as their religious head — Simeon, Ephraim, 
Manasseh, and even as far as Naphtali — to put away all objects of 
idolatry. The altars, groves, and statues were thrown down and de- 
stroyed, the molten and chased images were ground to powder, and 
their dust sprinkled on the graves of their worshippers in the king's 
presence, and the 
bones of the idola- 
trous priests were 
disentombed and 
burned upon their 
own altars. These 
proceedings were 
continued for six 
years, during which 
the zeal of Josiah 
was quickened by a 
most important dis- 
covery. He had 
issued a commission 
to his chief officers 
to co-operate with 
the high-priest Hil- 
kiah in a thorough 
renovation of the 
Temple. Money 
had been collected 
by the priests from 
all the tribes that 
the king had visit- 
ed ; and it was 
delivered without 
reckoning to the 
workmen, who 
proved faithful to 
the trust — a strik- 
ing contrast to the 

checks which were found necessary in the time of Joash. The ark, 
which appears to have been removed by Manasseh when he set up a 
carved image in the Ploly of Holies, was restored to its place by Jo- 
siah. During these repairs, the high-priest Hilkiah found the sacred 
copy of the book of the law, and delivered it to Shaphan the scribe, 




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JaEQHtfE > t-ot/AM 



VI AV^^AA'VYrillOvO 



SPECIMENS OF ANCIENT WHITINGS ON STICKS. 



43G HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

who read it before the king. It is hard for us to realize the full force 
of this discovery. We can scarcely conceive of a state of things in 
which, during centuries of the nominal establishment of Christianity, 
the people should still observe solemn festivals at the old sites of 
Druidical worship ; the altars of Thor, and Woden, and Freya should 
smoke with sacrifices in every city, town, and village, their statues 
be set up in cathedrals, and the heights round London should be 
crowned with the temples of Sivah and Juggernaut: all this lasting 
for centuries, with an occasional and partial return to the purer form 
of worship, while the Bible, never multiplied by printing, and only 
known in older and purer times through infrequent readings by the 
clergy, should have been utterly lost and forgotten ! Add to this the 
supposition that the lost volume contained, not the dark symbols of 
the Apocalypse, but the clear warning of national destruction and 
captivity to occur because of these idolatries, and then let us imagine 
the state of feeling on its sudden discovery ! Xo wonder that Josiah 
rent his clothes, and could not rest till he found a prophet to expound 
these terrible denunciations ! For the first time since the days of De- 
borah, we meet with a prophetess, Huldah, the wife of Shallum, 
keeper of the sacred vestments, who had her abode in the suburb of 
Jerusalem. Her reply to the high-priest and officers whom Josiah 
sent to consult her confirmed his worst fears for the fate of the city 
and the kingdom, but she added a message of comfort to the king. 
As he had shown a tender heart, and had humbled himself before 
God when he heard his words of threatening, he should be gathered 
to his fathers in peace, and not see the evil that was coming on 
Jerusalem and Judah. 

Josiah convened a solemn assemblv at the Temple for 
the public reading of the law and the renewal of the 
nation's covenant with Jehovah. "With new zeal the people set to the 
work of purging Jerusalem from idolatry. All the monuments of 
false worship were destroyed, from the temples built by Solomon on 
the Mount of Olives, and the horses and chariots which successive 
kings had dedicated to the sun at the Temple gates, to the altars set 
up by Ahaz and Manasseh. The images were brought out of the 
Temple and ground to powder, and their dust strewn on the brook 
Kishon. The houses devoted to the orgies of Ashtoreth and the worse 
abominations of Sodom were pulled down. Tophet, the seat of the 
worship of Moloch, in the valley of Hinnom, was defiled with the 
bones of the idol-priests, and the fire of the god was used for consum- 
ing the refuse of the city. 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 437 

Jerusalem being thus purified, the king went to Bethel, being now, 
it would seem, better informed of the events that had occurred there 
under Jeroboam. He broke down and burned the high place, the 
altar, and the grove, and fulfilled the word of the disobedient prophet 
by taking the bones of the priests out of the sepulchres and burning 
them upon the altar, while he spared the remains of the prophet and 
of the other who was buried with him. The priests, who still dared 
to sacrifice in the high places, were put to death, according to the law 
against idolatry. The wizards and necromancers shared their fate. 

Returning to Jerusalem in the eighteenth year of his reign (b. C. 

622), Josiah kept the passover according to the directions of the 

newly-discovered Book of the Law. This passover was the greatest 

and the most exact that had been kept since the time of Moses. It is 

the last great united act of religion in the time preceding the Captivity. 

The foreign relations of Judah were most favorable to 
B c 625 

these great reforms. The friendship of Egypt had been 

secured by the preceding kings, though, as we shall soon see, Josiah 
had kept from the entanglement of a close alliance. The Assyrian 
Empire was tottering to its fall, which was consummated at the very 
time that Josiah had completed his reforms. It was about B. c. 625 
that the allied forces of Media and Babylon finally laid siege to Nine- 
veh, and after a long and obstinate resistance, Saracus, the last 
Assyrian king, gathered his wives and treasures into his palace, and 
perished with them in the fire kindled by his own hand. He was 
the grandson of Esar-haddon, and the son of Sardanapalus II., with 
whom he is confounded by the classical historians. The fall of 
Assyria fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah, and the more recent predic- 
tions of Nahum and Zephaniah. 

Upon its ruins rose two great empires, the one destined to over- 
throw and the other to restore the Jewish commonwealth. Speaking 
roughly, they were divided from each other by the highlands that 
bound the great valley of the Tigris and Euphrates on the cast and 
north. While the Medes sought the extension of their power beyond 
the mountains of Armenia, and disputed with the Lydians the supre- 
macy of Asia Minor, the King of Babylon laid claim to the pro- 
vinces that had owned the sovereignty of Assyria west of the 
Euphrates. During most of the reign of Nabopolassar, the first 
king (b. c. 625-604), Josiah probably paid the accustomed tribute. 
But the powerful dynasty that now ruled in Egypt resolved to dis- 
pute the supremacy with Babylon. Pharaoh-necho, the son of 
Psammetichus, having finished the conquest of the Philistines, ad- 



433 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

vanced with a great army to attack Carchemish, which commanded a 
chief ford of the Euphrates. His line of march was through the 
great maritime plain and the valley of Esdraelon. Not only did he 
thus avoid Judah, but when Josiah showed signs of hostility, Necho 
sent him an emphatic but friendly warning to remain at peace. 
There has been much speculation on Josiah's motives for hostility. 
Some ascribe it to an honorable loyalty to Babylon as his sovereign ; 
but we incline to think that he was carrying into action the patriotic 
principles he had learned from the Book of the Law, though miscal- 
culating his own strength and mistaking the Divine will. Marching 
down from the highlands of Manasseh into the plain of Esdraelon 
by the pass which issues near Megiddo, he encountered the whole 
force of the Egyptian army. He had so far deferred to the remon- 
strance of Necho as to try to conceal his being present in person, but 
his disguise did not serve him. The Egyptian archers, shooting in 
their serried ranks, as we still see them on the monuments, wounded 
Josiah mortally in his chariot. He was removed in his second chariot 
to Jerusalem, and was buried among the sepulchres of the kings. 
His fall caused a universal mourning. Jeremiah wrote a lamentation 
for him, the spirit of which may be gathered from a passage in his 
larger book of Lamentations : — " The breath of our nostrils, the 
Anointed of Jehovah, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, under 
his shadow shall we live among the heathen." His loss formed the 
burden of regular songs even after the Captivity, when "the mourning 
of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddon" was still the type of 
the deepest national affliction. 

The reign of Josiah was marked by the revival of pro- 
phecy, which had long been silent under Manasseh and 
Amon. To this period belong Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and 
the greatest of all, Jeremiah. Nahum's splendid prophecy of the 
destruction of Nineveh seems to have only preceded the event by a 
short time. The date of Habakkuk, though far from certain, has 
been placed, upon strong internal evidence, about the twelfth or thir- 
teenth year of Josiah (b. c. 630-629). The title of Zephaxiah's 
prophecy places him in the reign of Josiah ; and, though it has been 
inferred from one passage that he wrote after the restoration of Jeho- 
vah's worship, his vehement denunciations of the sins that prevailed in 
Judah seem rather applicable to an earlier period. Jeremiah's long 
career began in the thirteenth year of Josiah (b. c. 629) with reproaches 
for sin and warnings of coming judgment, mingled with exhortations 
and encouragements to repentance, and promises of restoration. 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 439 

Though he is only once mentioned in the history of Josiah's reign, the 
language of his own book assures us that, both as priest and prophet, 
he animated the king and people in the work ol reformation, and 
most vigorously denounced the policy of the Egyptian party. His 
final lamentation for the fate of Josiah must have been doubly em- 
bittered by seeing Israel again prostrate beneath her old oppressor. 
In his prophecies we also trace that strange perplexity concerning the 
ultimate fate of the people, which even now weighs upon the student 
of their history, and which must have been terribly felt while the 
event was still unknown. Was it possible for a state that had sunk 
so low, not only politically but morally, to be restored even by re- 
pentance and reformation ? His only refuge from the despair in- 
volved in the true answer is in contemplating the past proofs of 
Jehovah's goodness to the nation, and uttering his inspired predictions 
of future glory. 

The death of Josiah, in B. c. 610, or rather 608, marks the virtual end 
of the kingdom of Judah. The four kings who followed him were the 
mere puppets of Egypt and Babylon, and the twenty-two years of their 
nominal reigns are occupied with successive conquests and deportations. 
These twenty-two years are divided into two equal parts by the cap- 
tivity of Jehoiachin. To follow their events, we must first have a 
clear view of the family of Josiah, the stem of which is as follows : — 

Josiah (b. b. c. 650, d.B. c. 610). 



Johanan Eliakini Mattaniah Shallum 

( Jehoahaz ?). or Jehoiakim, or Zedekiali, ( Jehoaliaz ?). 

b. b. c. 635 b. b. c. 620 

(2 K. xxiii. 36 ; (2 K. xxiv. 17, 18). 
2 Chron. xxxv. 5). 



Jehoiachin, Zedekiali ? 

Jeconiah, 
or Coniah. 



The place of Jehoahaz, the successor of Josiah, is purposely left 
doubtful in this pedigree. If the question were to be decided only 
by probability, we could scarcely hesitate to identify Jehoahaz with 
Johanan, as in the margin* of our version. The name and the succes- 
sion both favor this view ; and it involves no necessary alteration of 
the dates, though it is at least suspicious to find that Jehoiakim was 
born when his father was only fifteen. But it seems to have been 
overlooked that Jehoiakim had a different mother from Jehoahaz and 
Zedekiali : his mother's name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah, 



440 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of Euma j theirs was Hamutai, the daughter of Jeremiah, of Libnah. 
If Haniutai was the first wife of Josiah, her eldest son would take 
precedence of the eldest son of the second wife, even though younger, 
both in the statement of the pedigree and in the succession to the 
kingdom. AVe have, however, the express authority of a passage in 
Jeremiah, unless there be some corruption of the text, for identifying 
Jehoahaz with Shallum. In this case, we must transpose his place 
in the genealogy, and make him the third instead of the fourth son 
of Josiah ; for Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old in B. c. 610, and 
was therefore born in B. c. 633, thirteen years before Zedekiah. The 
absence of any mention of Johanan is accounted for by the supposi- 
tion that he died before his father, or fell with him at Megiddo ; and 
the preference of Shallum to Eiiakim may have been due to the 
superior rank of his mother. 

Jehoahaz, the seventeenth king of Judah, was raised 
b c 608 . . 

to the throne by the people after Josiah's death, while , 

Pharaoh-necho proceeded on his expedition against Carchemish. 
Having (it seems) taken that city, he summoned Jehoahaz to Riblah 
in Hamath (on the Orontes), and there kept him as a prisoner till his 
return to Egypt. Entering Jerusalem as a conqueror, he placed on 
the throne Eiiakim (the brother of Jehoahaz), to whom he gave the 
name of Jehoiakim, and imposed a tribute of 100 talents of silver 
and a talent of gold (about £40,000), which Jehoiakim collected by a 
tax on the land. Jehoahaz was carried by Pharaoh-necho to Egypt, 
where he died soon afterward. His brief reign was characterized by 
wickedness and oppression, but he was lamented as the last king of 
the people's choice. Jeremiah, who had mourned so bitterly for 
Josiah, now says : — " Weep ye not for the dead, neither honor him : 
weep sore for him that goeth away ; for he shall return no more, nor 
see his native country." The fortunes of Jehoahaz and his two 
successors are described in highly poetical imagery by Ezekiel. 

Jehoiakim, the eighteenth king of Judah, was twenty- 
five years old when he was placed on the throne by 
Pharaoh-necho, instead of his brother Jehoahaz; and he reigned 
eleven years at Jerusalem, doing evil in the sight of Jehovah. Jere- 
miah sternly rebukes his injustice and oppression, his cruelty and 
avarice, and his reckless luxury in building himself a magnificent 
palace, and contrasts all this with his father's justice to the poor: and 
in the Chronicles his name is dismissed with an allusion to "all the 
abominations that he did." From the very commencement of his 
reign, the voice of Jeremiah is heard plainly predicting, and pre- 






END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 441 

figuring by striking signs, the captivity at Babylon as a judgment 
rendered inevitable by the people's sins, but adding the promise of 
their future restoration. Attempts were made to silence him by the 
princes, priests, and false prophets of the Egyptian party, who 
represented him as a traitor. He often complains of these enemies, 
and he expressly predicts the captivity of Pashur, the priest and 
governor of the Temple, who had beaten him and put him in the 
stocks (or pillory). Still he faithfully delivered the messages which 
Jehovah now gave him to the King of Judah by name, as plainly as 
Nathan had been sent to David. This directness of language is a 
striking character of the prophecies of Jeremiah, and indeed of most 
of the historical prophecies. In one of these prophecies, after mourn- 
ing the death of Josiah and the hopeless captivity of Jehoahaz, he 
predicts the fate of Jehoiakim to the very details of his dishonored 
end. On another occasion the prophet took his stand in the court of 
the Temple, amid an assemblage from all the cities of Judah, to pro- 
claim that God would even yet repent him of the coming evil if they 
turned to him, but if not, that his house should be destroyed like the 
tabernacle at Shiloh, and the city made a curse to all nations. The 
priests and prophets now resolved on Jeremiah's death : and they had 
a precedent in the case of Urijah, the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath- 
jearim, who, having uttered prophecies like those of Jeremiah, had 
been pursued by the envoys of Jehoiakim into Egypt, and brought 
back to suffer an ignominious death. The princes of Judah, however, 
before whom Jeremiah was arraigned, appealed to the better preced- 
ent of the times of Hezekiah, who allowed Micah to prophesy with 
impunity, and Jeremiah's life was saved by the influence of Ahikam, 
the son of Shaphan, and other old counsellors of Josiah. These warn- 
ings were given in the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, and their ful- 
filment was soon begun by the overthrow of his Egyptian protector. 

The fourth year of Jehoiakim (b. c. 605-4) is a marked epoch both 
in secular and sacred history, though the destruction of Nineveh, once 
assigned to it by chronologers, is now referred to an earlier date. In 
this year we first meet with Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest of the 
Babylonian kings, and the destined destroyer of the Jewish monarchy. 
His father, Nabopolassar, appears to have been still alive when he 
led a great army against Carchemish, which was still held by the 
Egyptians, and inflicted a decisive defeat on Pharaoh-necho. This 
blow put an end to the hopes of the Egyptian party at Jerusalem, as 
well as to all fears of subjugation from that quarter, and left the city 
defenceless against Nebuchadnezzar. " The King of Egypt came not 



442 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



B. c. 605. 



again any more out of his land ; for the King of Babylon had taken 
from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained 
to the King of Egypt." Meanwhile Jeremiah, having predicted the 
overthrow of the Egyptians, uttered that memorable prophecy, in 
which he fixes the duration of the coming Captivity at seventy years, 
and predicts the fall of Babylon and the other nations hostile to the 
Jews. It was from this prophecy that Daniel was enabled to calcu- 
late the time of the promised restoration, and it was fulfilled by the 
decree of Cyrus in B. c. 536. 

The interesting episode of the flight of the Rechabites to Jerusa- 
lem also belongs to the time of Nebuchadnezzar's advance from 
Carchemish to Jerusalem. Their fidelity to the patriarchal laws of 
their ancestor, Jonadab the son of Rechab, is used by Jeremiah as a 
powerful reproof of the faithlessness of the Jews toward Jehovah. 

Nebuchadnezzar advanced to Jerusalem, which he took 
after a brief siege, dethroned Jehoiakim, and put him in 
fetters, with a view to carry him to Babylon. For some reason this 
intention was abandoned, and Jehoiakim was restored to his throne 
as a vassal. His treasures were carried off to Babvlon, where the 
vessels of the sanctuary were dedicated in the Temple of Belus. At 
the same time Nebuchadnezzar commissioned Ashpenaz, the chief of 
his eunuchs, to choose a number of royal and noble Hebrew youths, 
excelling alike in beauty and mental accomplishments, to be brought 
up at his court and trained in the learning of Chaldaea. Among 
those thus selected w r ere Daniel, with his three companions, Han- 
aniah, Mishael, and Azariah, to whose well-known history we shall 
soon return. 

While the long train of Syrian, Jewish, and Egyptian captives 
were led by the usual route, Nebuchadnezzar hastened back across 
the Syrian desert, in consequence of his father's death, and ascended 
the vacant throne without opposition. His accession is fixed by the 
Canon of Ptolemy at January 21, B. c. 604, which corresponds to the 
fourth year of Jehoiakim, the received chronology being two years 
too high. The state in which Jerusalem was left can be learned from 
Jeremiah, though there is great difficulty not only in determining the 
order of his prophecies, but in deciding, among those that belong to 
this period, which were delivered before, and which after, Nebuchad- 
nezzar's first capture of the city. It seems to have been after his 
retreat that a great fast was appointed for the ninth month, in the 
fifth year of Jehoiakim. The occasion was seized by Jeremiah, at 
the command of God, to make a solemn appeal to the people to return 






END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 443 

from their evil way, that they might even yet be forgiven. With 
the aid of his disciple and secretary, Baruch the son of Neriah, he had 
written in a volume the whole of the prophecies that he had uttered, 
from the days of Josiah downward, against Israel, Judah, and other 
nations. Being prevented, perhaps by the command of God, to insure 
his safety, from going up to the Temple himself, he commissioned 
Baruch to read the volume to the people assembled out of all the 
cities of Judah. Baruch took his station in a chamber above the new 
gate of the Temple, belonging to Michaiah the scribe, who was the 
grandson of Shaphan, and a friend to Jeremiah. When Baruch had 
read the book to the people in the court below, Michaiah reported 
the whole to the princes who were assembled in the scribe's chamber 
at the palace. Having sent for Baruch and heard him read the 
volume, they advised him and Jeremiah to hide themselves while 
they laid the matter before the king. Jehoiakim was sitting in his 
winter palace, with a fire burning in a brazier (for it was cold), and 
the prince Jehudi read the roll at his command. As fast as he read, 
the king cut off the leaves with a penknife and threw them into the 
fire till the whole volume was consumed, in spite of the intercession 
of Gemaliah and others. Jeremiah and Baruch only escaped arrest 
through having followed the advice of the princes. But this earliest 
example of Bible-burning was as unsuccessful in suppressing the word 
of God as later feats of the same kind. Jeremiah was bidden to take 
another roll, and to write in it the same words, with a further pro- 
phecy of the utter desolation of Judah, and of the king's disgraceful 
end. So Baruch wrote in the next volume, at the dictation of Jere- 
miah, all the words of the book which the king had burned, "and 
there were added besides unto them many like words." Both king 
and people, however, remained obdurate. 

The failure of this last appeal can scarcely have surprised Jeremiah, 
but it had a deep effect on his more youthful and ardent disciple. 
Baruch seems to have hoped that, amid the solemnity of the fast, the 
people would have been stirred up by.hiswwds to a movement-of 
new national and religious life, and Jeremiah addresses him in words 
fitted to chasten the despair of the too sanguine patriot. He reminds 
him of God's sovereign right to break down what he had built, and 
to pluck up what he had planted, and adds : — " Seekest thou great 
things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon 
all flesh, saith Jehovah : but thy life will I give thee for a prey" — as 
if snatched from the net of the destroyer — " in all places whither 
thou goest." The promise was fulfilled by Baruch's sharing with 




Hi 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 445 

Jeremiah the protection of Nebuchadnezzar when Jerusalem was 
taken, and by his afterward finding a refuge in Egypt with the 
remnant of the Jews. 

The burning of Jeremiah's prophecies indicates that spirit of 
defiance which led Jehoiakim to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar, after 
reigning for three years as a vassal of Babylon. He relied, if we 
may believe Josephus, on the aid of Egypt. The Scripture narrative 
is here so brief that we have to follow other authorities, whose state- 
ments are conflicting and uncertain. It seems that Nebuchadnezzar 
was too much occupied with the great conflict between the Lydian 
and Median empires to march against Jerusalem ; but his governors 
roused the surrounding nations, the Syrians, Moabites, and Ammon- 
ites, who joined with such forces of the Chaldseans as could be 
spared to harass Judah. At length, in the seventh year of his 
reign (b. c. 598), he took the field in person, with Cyaxares, king 
of Media, as his ally, and marched first against Tyre, which had 
rebelled about the same time as Judah. Having invested the city, 
he marched with a part of his forces against Jerusalem, put Jehoia- 
kim to death, as Jeremiah had prophesied, and placed his son 
Jehoiachin upon the throne. 

Jehoiachin, Jeconiah, or Coniah, the nineteenth 
B c 597 . . 

king of Judah, was eight years old when he was placed on 

the throne by Nebuchadnezzar, and reigned only three months and 

ten days. Considering his infancy, " the evil which he did in the 

sight of Jehovah " must be understood of the policy pursued by those 

who ruled in his name, the old idolatrous and Egyptian party. The 

fate which they brought upon the young king is vividly described by 

Jeremiah, who compares Jehovah's rejection of " Coniah " to the 

plucking off and throwing away a signet ring, and the king himself 

to a despised broken idol, foretells his captivity and his mother's, 

without hope of return, and solemnly invokes the whole earth to hear 

the sentence of Jehovah, pronouncing this man childless, and the last 

of his line who should sit upon the throne of David. But even this 

terrible burden is accompanied with the promise of Messiah's kingdom 

and of the people's restoration. 

The machinations of the Egyptian party at Jerusalem were at once 

crushed by Nebuchadnezzar, who again turned from the siege of 

Tyre to Jerusalem, in the eighth year of his reign (b. c. 598, Clinton; 

597, Rawlinson). The city was saved from a storm by the surrender 

of Jehoiachin, with his mother, Nehushta, and the royal harem, and 

all his princes and officers. They were all carried off to Babylon, 



446 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

with all the mighty men of the country, and all the skilled artisans, 
none being left behind but the poorest sort of the people. The total 
number of the captives was 10,000, of whom 7000 were soldiers, and 
1000 smiths and other craftsmen : it would seem that the royal 
family, the princes, and the priests, made up the other 2000. Among 
the captives were Ezekiel, who had not yet received his prophetic 
commission, and the grandfather of Mokdecai, Shimei, the son of 
Kish, a Benjamite. At the same time all the remaining treasures of 
the Temple and palace were carried off, and the golden vessels of the 
sanctuary were cut in pieces. Mattaniah, the youngest son of Josiah, 
and uncle of Jehoiachin, was made king over the wretched remnant 
of Judah, under the new name of Zedekiah. 

One of the most remarkable circumstances of this event is that 
Xebuchadnezzar abstained from the utter destruction of the rebellious 
city. We shall see that, in all probability, the king had already re- 
ceived the first of those great revelations of Jehovah's power and 
majesty which were made to him through Daniel, and it seems impos- 
sible not to refer his moderation to this lesson. Ezekiel expressly 
states what was the policy of Nebuchadnezzar in thus continuing the 
existence of the state : " He hath taken away the mighty of the land, 
that the kingdom might be base, that it might not lift itself up, but 
that by keeping of his covenant it might stand." The covenant re- 
ferred to is the oath which Xebuchadnezzar exacted of the new king, 
and which Zedekiah shamefully broke. 

Jehoiachin survived for many years after the fall of Zedekiah. 
For a long time his imprisonment at Babylon was rigorous: he was 
closely confined and clad in a prison dress. The plots of the Egyp- 
tian party and the hopes of his return held out by the false prophet 
Hananiah (b. c. 595) explain this severity as well as Hauaniah's cruel 
execution ; but in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity (on the 
25th or 27th day of the twelfth month, Adar=Feb. B. c. 561) he was 
released by Evil-merodach, who had just succeeded to the throne of 
Babylon (Jan. 11, b. c. 561). He was received with kind words, 
was placed in the royal presence on a throne above all the captive 
kings, received a robe of honor, and a portion for his daily diet, until 
his death. AVith him expired the royal line of Solomon. "This 
man was written childless," as Jeremiah had declared ; and " no man 
of his seed prospered, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling 
anv more in Judah." The inheritance of David passed on to the line 
of his son Xathan, whose representative, Salathiel, is therefore inserted 
in the genealogies as the son of Jehoiachin, and the ancestor of Christ. 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. Ul 

Zedekiah, the twentieth and last king of Judah, and the youngest 
son of Josiah and Hamutai, was twenty years old at his accession, and 
reigned eleven years, till the final destruction of Jerusa- 
lem. His proper name, Mattaniah, was changed to Zede- 
kiah at his accession. The only events of his reign, except the brief 
record of the fall of Jerusalem, are those connected with the history of 
Jeremiah, from whose book we learn the spirit of the times. Zede- 
kiah accepted his royalty over the impoverished remnant of the Jews, 
as the vassal of Nebuchadnezzar, to whom he was bound by every 
principle of good faith. The fate of his brother and his nephew had 
proved the hopelessness of rebellion even before the whole strength of 
the nation had been carried into captivity. The miserable remnant 
might well envy the condition of their captive brethren, and the time 
had at length come for piety and patriotism to show themselves in a 
wise submission to what was proved to be the will of God. Of such 
a course Jeremiah was the assiduous adviser. His parable of the two 
baskets of figs showed the goodness that God had in store for the cap- 
tivity, but the hopeless state of the remnant left behind. His letter 
to the elders, priests, and prophets at Babylon warned them, in oppo- 
sition to the false prophets who promised their speedy restoration, to 
make all their arrangements for a prolonged residence there, and 
repeated the former statement that their captivity should last seventy 
years ; adding that those left behind should, after suffering from the 
sword, the famine, and the pestilence, be dispersed over all the world, 
and become a by- word and reproach. From what follows we learn 
more of the false prophets whom Jeremiah denounced. Two among 
them, Ahab, the son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah, the son of Maaseiah, 
whose lives were as profligate as their principles, were seized by Nebu- 
chadnezzar, and " roasted in the fire," an example which must have 
been the more striking from its contrast with the deliverance of Sha- 
drach, Meshach, and Abednego. Another of the same party, Shema- 
iah, the Nehelamite (or the dreamer), dared to write, as if by the 
word of Jehovah, to Zephaniah and the other priests at Jerusalem, 
complaining of Jeremiah's letter, and demanding his imprisonment. 
Constant in his opposition to these false prophets, whether at Babylon 
or at home, Jeremiah uttered his grand prophecies of the restoration 
of Israel in God's own time, but not till then, and of the judgments 
that awaited all her enemies. His great prophecy against Babylon, 
for the consolation of the exiles, was rendered the more impressive by 
the sign which followed it. Seraiah, the son of Neriah, who carried 
this prophecy to Babylon, was directed, after reading it, to tie a stone 



448 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

to the volume and to sink it in the Euphrates, saying, " Thus shall 
Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon 
her." The occasion found for executing this commission was a visit 
which Zedekiah paid to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign (b. c. 
594-3), probably to pay his tribute to Nebuchadnezzar, or perhaps to 
defend himself against the first suspicions of treasonable dealings with 
Egypt. For in the same year Pharaoh-necho, who seems never to 
have ventured to meet Nebuchadnezzar after the defeat of Carchemish, 
was succeeded by his son Psammetichus II. (the Psammis of Hero- 
dotus). From the book of Ezekiel, who began in this year to 
enforce upon the exiles at Babylon the same lessons that Jeremiah 
was teaching at Jerusalem, we learn that Zedekiah entered into a 
treasonable correspondence with the new King of Egypt, which the 
prophet denounces as a gross violation of his plighted faith, destined 
to end in the king's being brought to Babylon for punishment, while 
his people should fall by the sword or be scattered to the winds. The 
terms of the agreement w T ith Egypt are expressly stated by the pro- 
phet : — "He rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into 
Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people ;" and we 
are forbidden to give Zedekiah credit for a patriotic resistance by the 
declaration of the historian : — " He rebelled against King Nebuchad- 
nezzar, who had made him swear by God ; but he stiffened his neck 
and hardened his heart from turning unto Jehovah, God of Israel." 

At Jerusalem the plot appeared so far ripe that the false prophet 
Hananiah promised the return of Jahoiachin within two years, and 
publicly broke off the neck of Jeremiah the yoke which he wore, as a 
sign of the hopeless subjection of Judah and the surrounding nations, 
who seemed to have joined the Egyptian league. Jeremiah replied 
that the yoke of wood (the present vassalage of Babylon) should be 
replaced by a yoke of iron (the final destruction of the nation), and 
predicted the death of Hananiah, which happened within the year. 
We find further evidence of the progress of the conspiracy in the book 
of Ezekiel. His vision of the Temple at Jerusalem, in the fifth day 
of the sixth month of the sixth year of the Captivity (b. c. 594-3), 
reveals the idol abominations which would soon be punished by the 
destruction of all but a small chosen remnant, and other visions and 
types follow to the like effect. The plainer language of Ezekiel, 
about a year later (on the tenth of the fifth month of the seventh year 
of Zedekiah), when the elders of Judah came to him to inquire of 
Jehovah concerning the state of Jerusalem, serves to show that the 
rebellion had broken out. The utter corrrption of the people at this 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 449 

time, their persecution of God's prophets and rejection of his word, 
so that his wrath came upon them " till there was no remedy ; " the 
wickedness of Zedekiah in not humbling himself before the word of 
God by Jeremiah; his faithlessness to the oath he had sworn to 
Nebuchadnezzar, and that not from religious patriotism, for "he 
stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning unto Jehovah, 
God of Israel ; and the result in the destruction of Jerusalem and 
the captivity of the people till the time of the Persian Empire, so 
that the land kept her sabbaths for seventy years as Jeremiah had 
foretold; these outlines of the catastrophe are drawn by the writer 
of the Chronicles. 

It was still two years before Nebuchadnezzar laid siege 
to Jerusalem, with the resolution to destroy it utterly for 
Zedekiah's treason. From this point the dates of Ezekiel's prophe- 
cies accompany the events at Jerusalem. The city was invested in 
the ninth year of Zedekiah, on the tenth day of the tenth month ; and 
on the same day Ezekiel was commissioned to foretell its utter 
destruction, by striking images, to the exiles at Babylon. The forces 
marshalled against Jerusalem comprised Nebuchadnezzar's whole 
army, all the vassal kings of his empire, and all the nations around, 
Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and others, who came up to avenge 
the quarrels of a thousand years. All the fortified cities of Judah 
had already been taken except Lachish and Azekah. 

In this extremity Zedekiah proclaimed freedom to all Hebrew 
slaves, and sent Zephaniah the priest, with another messenger, to 
entreat the prayers of Jeremiah. In reply, he announced the coming 
destruction of the city and the fate of the king himself. The king 
now attempted to silence him by a mild confinement in the court of 
the prison in the palace, where he had the society of Baruch. While 
thus shut up, and that in a city environed by a mighty enemy, Jere- 
miah purchased, as the " Goel," a field at his native village of 
Anathoth in Benjamin, as a sign of that return which he went on to 
prophesy, together with the glories of Messiah's kingdom. This act 
of Taith has been compared to that of the Roman who bought, at its 
full value, the ground on which Hannibal was encamped. 

And now there broke forth a deceptive ray of hope. Pharaoh- 
hophra, who had just succeeded to the throne of Egypt, led the forces 
which his father had collected to the relief of Zedekiah. His capture 
of Gaza caused Nebuchadnezzar to suspend the siege of Jerusalem, 
and to march against him. And now Jerusalem exulted with the joy 
of a city delivered from a hopeless siege. But Jeremiah forbade them 
29 



450 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

to deceive themselves, while, on the distant banks of the Euphrates, 
Ezekiel also foretold the ruin of Egypt. The princes of Judah now 
broke their solemn covenant to release their Hebrew slaves ; and 
Jeremiah, having denounced their conduct, left the city for his home 
in Benjamin. He was detained by one of his enemies, who happened 
to be captain of the gate. The princes accused him of deserting to 
the Chaldaeans, a course which had now become common ; and he 
was imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the scribe, where he re- 
mained for some time. Meanwhile his warnings were fulfilled by the 
return of the army of Nebuchadnezzar, who, according to Josephus, 
had defeated the Egyptians ; though more probably the enemy retired 
without a battle. 

Zedekiah now sent secretly for Jeremiah, and asked him, " Is there 
any word from Jehovah ?" " There is," replied the prophet ; " thou 
shalt be delivered into the hand of the King of Babylon." Hoping, 
it would seem, for a more favorable answer, the king sent him back 
to the court of the prison, and ordered him to be fed while any bread 
was left in the city. In reply to another request which the king sent 
to him by Pashur and Zephaniah to inquire of Jehovah, the prophet 
pointed out a surrender as the only hope of safety. Upon this the 
princes demanded his death as a traitor, and the king confessed him- 
self too weak to withstand them. They threw Jeremiah to perish in 
a hideous pit of the prison, where he sank into the mire; but the bet- 
ter feelings of the king came to his rescue at the intercession of the 
Ethiopian eunuch Ebed-melech, to whom he promised his life "for a 
prey " in the destruction of the city. Once more adjured by Zede- 
kiah, in private, to give him counsel from God, the prophet pressed 
him to surrender; but the king was afraid of falling into the hands 
of the Jews who had revolted to Nebuchadnezzar, and who had doubt- 
less many a wrong to avenge. So he entreated Jeremiah to keep the 
interview a secret, and sent him back to the court of the prison, where 
he remained till Jerusalem was taken. 

That catastrophe was now at hand ; the ruin foreseen by Moses 
from the very birth of the nation, foretold by the prophets, and post- 
poned for the sake of pious kings, as often as it was provoked by their 
degenerate successors ; held in suspense in remembrance of God's oath 
to David, but brought down at last by the shameless, persistent, 
inveterate violation of his covenant of piety and purity by the chosen 
people. Jehovah had done all he could by his prophets, whose words 
they despised and misused their persons, "until the wrath of Jehovah 
arose against his people till there was no remedy." 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH 



451 



In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, as the eleventh year of 
Zedekiah drew to a close, Jerusalem, which had been besieged for two 
years and a half, with no relief except the brief diversion 
made by Pharaoh-hophra, was reduced to the last extremi- 
ties of famine. On the ninth day of the fourth month an entrance 
was effected at night through a breach in the city wall, probably on 
the northern side, and the great officers of Nebuchadnezzar entered 
the Temple and took their station in the middle court, as was the 
custom of the Assyrians at the conclusion of a siege. Zedekiah, with 
all his men of war, fled by the garden gate of the royal palace on the 
south side, near the present Bab-el-Mugharibeh, and took the road 
over the Mount of Olives to the valley of the Jordan. They were 
hotly pursued with the morning light. Zedekiah was overtaken in 
the plain of Jericho, 
his army dispersed, 
and himself taken. 
He was carried to 
Nebuchadnezzar at 
Ribluh, in Hamath, 
whither the king 
had gone to watch 
the siege of Tyre. 
Zedekiah spoke with 
his conqueror face 
to face, as Jeremiah 

had predicted, babylontsh conquerors putting out the eyes 
Having seen the of zedekiah. 

slaughter of all his 

sons and the princes of Judah, his eyes were put out, and he was sent 
to Babylon, where he remained a close prisoner till his death. The 
pity, which might be felt for the sad fate of the last king who wore 
the crown of David at Jerusalem, must be withheld from the for- 
sworn vassal, who accepted his nephew's throne at the hand of a con- 
queror, only to prove a traitor alike to his earthly master and to his 
king, Jehovah. 

Other victims were selected for the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar. 
The high-priest Scraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and three door- 
keepers of the Temple, the commander-in-chief, who was an eunuch, 
and five (or seven) of the principal courtiers, the scribe or mustering 
officer of the army — and sixty representatives of the people, were 
carried by Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, to Riblah, where 




452 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



Xebuchadnezzar sentenced them to death, probably by impalement 
and even by worse tortures, if we may judge by the customs that still 
shock our eves on the monuments of Assyria and Babvlon. Amid 
all these horrors, there is something in the deliberate justice of the 
Eastern conqueror which bears a favorable contrast with the general 
massacre that attended the second great capture of Jerusalem by the 
virtuous Titus. Our involuntary respect for the grand King of 
Babylon is confirmed by the treatment which Jeremiah met with in 
obedience to his orders. As soon as the city was taken, Xebuzar- 
adan, with the other chief officers, sent for the prophet out of the 
prison, and committed him to the care of Gedaliah, the son of 
Ahikam, son of Shaphan, who plays a most important part in the 
subsequent transactions. 

Meanwhile the King of Babvlon 
decided on the fate of the rebellious 
city, which he had twice spared. 
On the seventh day of the following 
month (Ab, the fifth month) Xebu- 
zar-adan returned to Jerusalem, 
if charged to carry out the instructions 
— ^^^0^- ^Pw MS ^ of his master. Two clear davs were 

occupied in collecting the booty that 
was still to be found in the Temple 
and the city after their former 
spoliations, including the ornaments 
„, of the Temple which had been con- 

JERE3IIAH MOURXESG OVER JERU- . L 

salem. sidered too bulky for removal, and 

the vessels which appear to have 
been left, out of religious respect, for the necessary service of the 
sanctuary. Among the former were the two great pillars of the 
Temple-porch, Jachin and Boaz, and the brazen sea, with the twelve 
bulls on which it rested, all of which were broken to pieces, and their 
brass transported to Babylon. On the third day the Temple and 
city were committed to the flames, with the palaces of the king and 
princes, and all the chief houses of Jerusalem, and the walls were 
levelled with the ground. The day of the catastrophe was the tenth 
day of the fifth month (Ab), in the nineteenth year of Xebuchad- 
nezzar, just after the completion of the eleventh year of Zedekiah. 
It is still observed by the Jews as a fast only second to the great Day 
of Atonement. 

While the work of destruction was carried on bv the Chaldsean 




--^>tt* 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 453 

army, it was viewed with malignant exultation by the nations which 
had so long chafed beneath the yoke of their kinsman Israel. The 
Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites were loud in their 
revengeful rejoicings over the destruction of the holy city, and their 
conduct was deeply felt and keenly resented by the conquered people. 
All these nations soon fell victims to the like fate, which the prophets 
again and again denounce upon them ; and the punishment of Edom, 
in particular, -forms the whole burden of the prophecy of Obadiah, 
which may be placed, by internal evidence, between the destruction 
of Jerusalem in B. c. 586, and the conquest of Edom by Nebuchad- 
nezzar in b. c. 583. This brief prophecy of only twenty-one verses 
is chiefly remarkable for the closing prediction of the coming " day 
of Jehovah," in which the restoration and enlargement of Judah 
and the final destruction of Edom are clearly but figures of the great 
consummation that still remains to be fulfilled, when, " Saviours shall 
come upon Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau ; and the king- 
dom shall be Jehovah's." 

The captives who were carried away on this occasion were but the 
gleanings of those who had been led off with Jehoiachin. After the 
escape of the warriors, the people left in the city and those who had 
deserted to the Chaldseans numbered only 832 persons fit to bear the 
march. A remnant of the very poorest class were left to till the 
ground and dress the vineyards ; and to these must be added a few 
objects of the royal favor, as Jeremiah, and those of the fugitive 
soldiers and other roving bands, who had escaped pursuit in the 
fastnesses of Judsea and the desert. At the end of the book of 
Jeremiah we have the following summary of the captivities under 
Nebuchadnezzar : 

1. In the seventh (eighth) year of his reign (b. c. 597) 3023 Jews. 

2. " ; ' eighteenth (nineteenth) '" " (b. c. 586) 832 " 

3. u " twenty-third " " " (b. c. 582) 745 " 



Total 4600 Jews. 

Those last mentioned were carried away by Nebuzar-adan at the time 
of the war with Egypt. 

It deserves especial notice that the land which we may henceforth 
call Judaea, to distinguish it from the other parts of Palestine, was 
not subjected, like that of Samaria had been, to a new colonization by 
heathen settlers. It lay ready to be occupied by those to whom God 
had given it, after it had rested for the sabbatic years of which it had 
been deprived, and when they themselves had been chastened by 
affliction. This hope sustained those of the captives who, like Daniel, 
had still the faith to pray with their faces turned toward Jerusalem. 



454 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




Before pursuing the story of the Jews at Babylon to the end of the 
Captivity, we may conclude the history of Judaea itself during the 
last twenty-five years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (b. c. 586-561), 
comprising the fate of the people left behind, and the fortunes of 
Jeremiah. The desolated land was not abandoned to anarchy. 
Nebuzar-adan appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahakim, as governor 
at Mizpah, and Jeremiah joined him, having been left at liberty by 
Nebuzar-adan to go to Babylon or wherever he pleased. The dis- 
persed soldiers and people soon gathered about the new governor, 
who prudently exhorted them to live quietly as the subjects of the 
King of BabyJon. Many Jews appeared from the countries of Moab, 
Amnion, and Edom, and the people were soon peacefully engaged in 
gathering the vintage and summer fruits throughout their cities. 
But the brief rest from trouble was cut short by the envy of the 
King of Ammon and the ambition of a Jewish prince of the royal 
blood, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah. They had the incredible 
audacity to attempt a new insurrection. Ishmael and ten Jewish 
princes came to Mizpah as friendly guests ; and Gedaliah, who had 
refused to credit a warning of his treachery, was murdered with the 
Jews and Chaldseans who were with him at Mizpah, only two months 
after the departure of Nebuzar-adan. Two days later a band of 
eighty mourners appeared on the frontier, from Shechem, and Shiloh, 
and Samaria, bringing offerings for the desolated house of God, a 
touching proof of the religious patriotism which was still to be found 
even in the most heathenized part of Israel. By a treacherous arti- 
fice, Ishmael slew them all but ten, and cast their bodies, with those 



END OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 455 

of his former victims, into a pit which Asa had dug at Mizpah for a 
hiding-place during his war with Baasha, and which may rank in 
history with the Glaciere of Avignon and the well of Cawnpore. He 
then collected the people who were at Mizpah, including the daugh- 
ters of Zedekiah, who had been intrusted to Gedaliah' s care, and 
carried them off as captives toward Ammon. He was pursued by 
the Jewish captains, headed by Johanan, the son of Kareah, the same 
who had ineffectually warned Gedaliah. They overtook him by the 
great waters at Gibeon, and rescued the captives, while Ishmael, with 
eight comrades, fled to Ammon. Then, instead of returning to 
Mizpah, they marched southward to Bethlehem, intending to take 
refuge in Egypt from Nebuchadnezzar's vengeance for the murder 
of his governor. First, however, they asked Jeremiah for counsel 
from Jehovah. In ten days the answer came, forbidding them to go 
to Egypt, promising them the protection of God if they remained, 
and assuring them that, if they persisted in departing, the famine, 
and sword, and pestilence, from which they fled, would overtake them 
in their new refuge. So faithful was the prophet to the long-standing 
command that the people should never, under any pressure, seek to 
return by the way of Egypt. His warning only brought upon him a 
charge of conspiring with Baruch to speak falsely in God's name ; 
and both he and Baruch were carried to Egypt against their will, 
with all the remnant who had been left under Gedaliah. Many of 
the Jews had already taken refuge there during the whole time that 
Egypt was regarded as their help against Assyria. They now formed 
a large community, living at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros 
— a community which had afterward an important history of its own. 
Meanwhile they fell into idolatry, and Jeremiah denounced both on 
them and on Egypt itself the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar — a pro- 
phecy echoed from the banks of the Euphrates by Ezekiel, whose 
warnings, promises, and exhortations to the exiles at Babylon still 
kept pace with the current of events in Judaea. 

The threatened blow soon fell. In B. c. 585 Tyre sur- 
B C 585 . . 

rendered, after a siege of thirteen years. After a brief 

repose Nebuchadnezzar led his victorious army into Egypt, probably 
on some new provocation by Apries. In the absence of his own 
annals or other direct testimony, we can only infer from the state- 
ments of Josephus, and from the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, 
that the chastisement he inflicted on Egypt reached the Jews who 
had taken refuge there. It was at this time, as we have already seen, 
that his general Nebuzar-adan carried off another remnant from 



456 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Judaea, thereby probably almost completing the depopulation of the 
land. There is some evidence, though far from certain, that Nebu- 
chadnezzar invaded Egypt a second time, ten years later (b. c. 571), 
deposing Apries and setting up Amasis ; and this may be the occa- 
sion of EzekieFs last prophecy against that power. At some time 
during the interval it is almost certain that the King of Babylon 
subdued the nations bordering upon Judah, and for whose exultation 
in her destruction the prophets had denounced on them the heaviest 
woes, such as the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites. There is a 
very remarkable passage in w T hich Jeremiah comforts the Jews amid 
all these judgments by contrasting his destruction of the other nations 
and of their present oppressors with his correction of themselves : — 
" Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith Jehovah : for I am with 
thee ; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have 
driven thee : but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in 
measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished." No words 
could express more fully the principle of Jehovah's dealings with the 
Jews, as the type of his dealings with his own people in every age. 






CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON. 45t 




CHAPTER XXIII. 

FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH TO THE CLOSE OF THE 

CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON. 

[b. c. 586-536.] 

F all historic figures, Nebuchadnezzar most strikingly represents 
the powers of destruction. Like his own image on the plain 
of Dura, he towers over the ground he has cleared of every 
opponent from the Nile to the Euphrates. Above all, he had 
been the instrument in the hand of God to root out his people 
for their sins from the good land given to their fathers, but he had 
yet to learn that he himself was subject to their God. This lesson 

was taught him while he enioved the fruit of his victories 

b c 605 . . 

in the city of Babylon, which he had made the wonder of 

the world by his " hanging gardens " and other splendid works ; and 

the appointed teacher was a young Hebrew of the first captivity, whose 

career at Babylon was almost a repetition of that of Joseph at the court 

of Pharaoh. 

We have seen that when Nebuchadnezzar first took Jerusalem in 

the third year of Jehoiakim (b. c. 605), he commissioned Ashpenaz, 

the master of his eunuchs, to select the most comely youths of royal 

and noble birth, possessed of natural grace and acquired learning, to 

be educated in the language and wisdom of the Chaldseans. They 

were to receive their food and wine from the king's table, and after 

three years' training they were to be brought before him. Among 

them were four belonging to the tribe of Judah, whose names were 

Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, which according to Oriental 

custom (as in the case of Joseph), were changed by the prince of the 

eunuchs into Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. In 

sacred history, however, Daniel has retained his own name, while the 

other three, being only mentioned on one important occasion, are 

known by their Babylonish appellations. Daniel resolved that he 

would not defile himself with the king's food and wine, things that 

had been offered to idols : and, through the tender regard with which 

he had inspired the prince of the eunuchs, he obtained the favor of an 

experiment on himself and his three friends. After being fed for ten 

days with pulse and water, they were found in better condition than 



458 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

their comrades who had been nourished on the king's dainties ; so this 
diet was continued to the end. Meanwhile God endowed them with 
all knowledge and wisdom, and to Daniel in particular he granted the 
same insight into dreams and visions that had distinguished Joseph. 
When the time came for them to appear before the king, he found 
them the fairest of all their fellow-captives, and ten times better in 
wisdom and discernment than all the magicians and astrologers of 
Chaldsea. So they stood before him among the courtiers. We must 
not fail to notice that law of God's providence, by which at every 
crisis of his people's history, he raised up for them a leader skilled in 
all the accomplishments of their adversaries; Abraham, the stately 
prince, among the Arab sheiks ; Joseph, the diviner and statesman ; 
Moses, the warrior, and learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians ; 
Daniel, the most learned sage and faultless governor in Chaldaea. 
Well might South reply to the flippant objection that God has no 
need of our learning — "Much less has he need of your ignorance." 

The great opportunity for the use of Daniel's power as an interpreter 
of dreams for the glory of God occurred in a manner very similar to 
the case of Joseph. The date assigned to this event is the second year 
of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Lightfoot and others take this to 
mean the second year after the full settlement of his empire, or about 
B. c. 570. But as the captivity of Daniel commenced, as we have 
seen, a year before the accession of Nebuchadnezzar, the three years 
of his probation would expire in the second year, and the date may be 
taken literally. This result throws a flood of light on the career of 
Nebuchadnezzar, and especially on his repeated forbearance toward 
Jerusalem, and his kindness to Jeremiah. It is needless to recount in 
detail those pictures which are so vividly impressed on our earliest 
recollections, the king's troubled sleep and dreams, which he forgot 
when he awoke in the morning ; his despotic demand of the Chaldsean 
soothsayers, scarcely too severe a test of their extravagant pretensions, 
to tell him the dream itself, as well as the interpretation ; the simplicity 
with which, for once in their lives, they confess their impotence to 
discover what was not first told them, instead of boldly avowing, like 
Daniel, that God would not conceal from the man divinely inspired 
to reveal his counsels the far less knowledge of the signs chosen to 
exhibit them. When their failure had all but involved in their sen- 
tence of death the Hebrew men of learning too, Daniel obtained from 
the king a respite, which he and his companions spent in prayer ; and 
he received the revelation with one of those grand utterances of praise 
and prayer that form the great charm of his book. The vision, which 



CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON 



459 




ANCIENT BABYLON. 



he was inspired to expound to Nebuchadnezzar, is one of several by 
which, at this epoch, when the great monarchies of Asia were about 
to come into collision with the powers of the West, God revealed the 
steps by which the successive empires were to give way before his 
kingdom. The symbol of a colossal statue was perhaps connected 
w T ith the image which Nebuchadnezzar soon afterward set up on the 
plain of Dura. As he was meditating the erection of that monument 
of his victories, God showed him a statue whose composition and end 
revealed the fate, not only of his own empire, but of all the other at- 
tempts at universal dominion to the end of time. The lesson was the 
same as that which was taught to the first Babel-builders on that 
very spot — that all such attempts are futile, for the kingdoms of the 
world are reserved to be the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ. 
The confession which Daniel's exposition of his dream 
drew from Nebuchadnezzar is scarcely the language of a 
convert to the true religion, but rather of a heathen yielding to the 
God of the Jews an exalted place among the gods. According to his 
promise, he loaded Daniel with rewards, made him ruler over the 
province of Babylon, and master of the Chaldann sages, and appointed 
his three companions, at his request, to high offices in the province of 
Babylon. 



b. c. 570. 



460 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Their fidelity to Jehovah soon underwent a terrible trial, but came 
out as unscathed as their persons from the fiery furnace. That Nebu- 
chadnezzar should have condemned them for such a reason so soon 
after the lesson he had learned, is a more striking than surprising 
example of a despot's impatience of opposition and readiness to take 
the bait of flattery. Daniel would seem to have been too firmly 
established in the royal favor for his enemies to venture to attack him 
till they had first made an example of his companions. There has 
been much discussion respecting the vision of the " Son of God " with 
the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace. His walking with them 
there seems to imply that they were conscious of His presence and 
sustained by His comfort, like Stephen in the agony of his martyr- 
dom, and they would doubtless recognize in him the "Angel Jehovah/' 
who had so often shown himself to their fathers, and who had pro- 
mised, " When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be 
burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." But we must 
not ascribe such divine knowledge to Nebuchadnezzar. To him the 
vision was that of some unknown deity, " a Son of the Gods " — but it 
was enough first to petrify him with astonishment, and then to extort 
from him a warmer acknowledgment of the God of the Hebrews. 
Their enemies were silenced by a terrible decree, and they themselves 
were promoted to higher stations in the province of Babylon. 

A third lesson, by which the King of Babylon was finally bowed 
in submission to Jehovah, is recorded in his own rescript to all the 
provinces of his empire. Another dream, which Daniel again inter- 
preted when the Chaldsean soothsayers had failed, warned the king 
that his reason should depart, and he should be driven from among 
men to herd with the beast of the field, till " seven times " had passed 
over his head. The judgment came upon him at the expiration of a 
year. His enemies had been subdued on every side, his great works 
of art and power had been completed, and, as he surveyed them from 
the roof of his palace, he forgot God, of whose might he had had 
soch proofs, and exclaimed, " Is not this great Babylon that I have 
built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and 
for the honor of my majesty?" The words had scarcely mounted 
toward the vault of heaven, when a voice replied, " O King Nebu- 
chadnezzar, to thee it is spoken ; The kingdom is departed from 
thee;" adding the details of his exile from among men, all which 
were fulfilled for a space of seven years. Assuredly Nebuchadnezzar 
is the grandest of all despots ; but the climax of his grandeur is seen 
in his publishing the history of his own humiliation, in order to give 
glory to the most high God. 



CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON. 461 

The seven years of Nebuchadnezzar's madness may safely be placed 
in the last decade of his reign, b. c. 571-561 ; and, as he was again 
" established in his kingdom and excellent majesty was 
J?" C * added to him," a few years must be allowed after his recov- 
ery. The date of Ussher (b. c. 569-563) is therefore quite 
late enough. After a reign of forty-three years, he was succeeded, in 
B. c. 561, by his son Evil-merodach (the Illoarudamus of the 
Greek writers), whose release of Johoiachin from prison is the last 
event mentioned in the books of Kings. 

For the twenty-three years between the accession of Evil-merodach 
and the fall of Babylon (b. c. 561-538) there is a gap in the Scripture 
history. The book of Daniel passes on at once to the capture of the city 
and the death of Belshazzar, who is called the son of Nebuchadnez- 
zar ; but this word need not signify more than a direct successor. 
Jeremiah, whose prophecies of this period are almost as definite as 
histories, predicts that all nations should serve Nebuchadnezzar, and 
his son and his son's son, until the very time of the land came ; and the 
Chronicles state that the Jews were servants to him and his sons y until 
the reign of the kingdom of Persia. Our chief secular authorities for 
the period, Berosus, Herodotus, Ctesias, the Canon, and Josephus, amid 
many discrepancies of detail, yet agree sufficiently to guide us to pro- 
bable conclusions, with the aid (here unfortunately very scanty) of the 
inscriptions on the monuments. The succession of kings seems to 
have been as follows : — 

Years of 
B. C. Reign. 

561. Evil-merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar 2 

559. Neriglissar* sister's husband to Evil-merodach, a usurper ; per- 
haps the same as Nergal-sharezer, the Rab-mag ( Chief of the 
Magi? Jer. xxxix. 3, 13) 3£ 

556. Laborosoarchod, his son, killed by a conspiracy, and the 

family of Nebuchadnezzar restored Of 

555. Nabonadius or Nabonedus {Nabu-nit), the Labynettjs II. of 
Herodotus, probably the son or grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, 
and the last king of Babylon 17 

539. (about). Belshazzar (Bil-shar-uzur), son of Nabonadius, be- 
comes his associate in the kingdom, and governor of Babylon.. 2 

538. Babylon taken by Cyrus, and governed by his grandfather (?) 

Astyages, Darius the Mede 2 

536. Death of Darius — Cyrus reigns alone — Restoration of the Jews... 

529. Death of Cyrus, after a reign of nine years from the taking of 

Babylon 9 

It was during the reign of Neriglissar that the great revolution 
occurred which was destined to change the fate of Western Asia and 
to act powerfully on Europe, the overthrow of the old dynasty in 
Media and the foundation of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the 
Great. Taking the length assigned to the reign of Cyrus by 
Herodotus, twenty-nine years, his accession falls in B. c. 558. 



462 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

As the restorer of the Jews, and as " called by his name " by the 
prophet Isaiah, no heathen monarch fills a more important place in 
sacred history. But we must not confound his high destiny with his 
personal character. Even when God, by the mouth of Isaiah, says 
of Cyrus "he is my shepherd, to perform all my pleasure," "my 
anointed, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before 
him," he adds, " I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known 
me" The prejudice raised in his favor by his appearance in the 
Scriptures has been confirmed by the choice made of him by Xeno- 
phon, in his romance of the u Cyropsedia," for the ideal model of a 
king trained up and governing on Socratic principles. But the Cyrus 
of history is an Asiatic conqueror in an age of despotic force, though 
a favorable specimen of his class. His history proves that he had 
many of the virtues of a hero and a king ; but if we seek further for 
his likeness, we must look rather at Zengis Khan or Tim our, than at 
the Cyrus of the " Cyropsedia." 

Of the many conflicting versions of his history which were derived 
from the romantic stories of the Persian poets, that of Herodotus is 
the most probable and consistent. Passing over the fables of his ex- 
posure and preservation, Ave come to the fact in which all his histo- 
rians concur, that he dethroned Astyages, the last king of Media (and 
according to some authorities, as Herodotus, his mother's father), and 
transferred the rule over the Medo-Persiau Empire to the royal 
family of Persia. This revolution transferred the Medo-Persian 
Empire from an effete dynasty to a family of hardy mountaineers, 
both being of that Aryan race which had not yet occupied a leading 
place in history. The capital was fixed at Agbatana (Ecbatana). 

The change was naturally alarming to the three great monarchies 
of Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt. The first was the ancient rival of 
the Medes in Asia Minor, where the river Halys had been fixed as 
the boundary of the two empires, after the great battle between 
Alyattes, king of Lydia, and Cyaxares, king of Media, which was 
broken off by the same solar eclipse that was predicted by T hales of 
Miletus. While Astyages, or Aspadas, the successor of Cyaxares in 
Media, reigned quietly and, as it seems, weakly, Ckgesus (b. c. 568), 
the son of Alyattes, subdued all the independent nations of Asia 
Minor west of the river Halys (except the Lycians and Cilicians, who 
were protected by the chain of Taurus), and obtained that power and 
wealth which make him so conspicuous a figure in the history of 
Herodotus. The news of the revolution effected bv Cyrus decided 

*/ * 

him on an attempt to check the growth of the Medo-Persian power. 




mmm 



463 



464 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

While seeking encouragement from the oracles of Greece, he sent 
envoys to Ama-sis, king of Egypt, and to Nabonedus, who had just 
obtained the throne of Babylon, to form an alliance against Cyrus. 
It seems to have been at this time that Nabonedus constructed those 
great works for the defence of Babylon and for the inundation of the 
surrounding country, which Herodotus ascribes to an otherwise un- 
known Queen Nitocris. Meanwhile the rapid advance of Cyrus and 
the impetuosity of Croesus, who crossed the Halys, deceived, accord- 
ing to the well-known story of Herodotus, by an ambiguous oracle, 
brought the conflict to an issue. Crcesus was defeated and shut up 
within the walls of Sardis. His pressing messages to his allies had 
scarcely arrived, when they were followed by the tidings that Sardis 
had been surprised and Croesus taken prisoner, and that Cyrus was 
master of his kingdom to the JEgean Sea. 

The interval of nearly fifteen years before the final conflict with 
Babylon was probably occupied by Cyrus in finishing the conquest of 
the tribes of Asia Minor, strengthening his power in Media, and 
subduing the more distant portion of the Babylonian Empire in 
Upper Assyria. Nabonedus seems to have remained on the defensive, 
completing the great works around Babylon. At length Cyrus 
marched from Ecbatana, and crossed the river Gyndes by a diversion 
of its channel, which must have prepared his engineers for their 
greater operation of the same kind on the Euphrates. JNabonedus 
tried the fate of one battle, and, on his defeat, retired to Borsippa 
(Birs Nimrud), " the Chaldsean Benares, the city in which the Chal- 
dseans had their most revered objects of religion, and where they 
cultivated their science." Here he surrendered after the capture of 
Babylon. Cyrus spared his life, and gave him a principality in 
Carmania, where he died. 

Meanwhile the people of Babylon remained in fancied 
security behind their immense fortifications. The city 
formed a vast square, divided diagonally, and almost equally, by the 
Euphrates. Each side of the square was about fourteen miles long. 
The double walls are said to have been about three hundred feet high 
and eighty-five feet broad ; dimensions which cease to be incredible 
when we remember that they were vast mounds of earth and brick- 
work, the remains of which, and others like them, are still traced by 
travellers. These walls were strengthened by two hundred and fifty 
towers, and pierced with a hundred gateways, the lintels and side- 
posts, as well as the gates themselves, being of brass. The river was 
enclosed on both banks by the quays, which were likewise protected 



CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON. 465 

by walls and brass gates. These walls and gates are particularly 
referred to in that striking prophecy of Jeremiah, which is almost a 
history of the siege. The vast area of two hundred square miles, 
interspersed, as is usual in Eastern cities, with large open spaces, gave 
opportunities for growing corn, in addition to the immense supplies 
of food which had been laid up for a siege of many years. The two 
banks of the river were connected by a stone bridge, about a thousand 
yards in length, at each end of which stood a royal palace. The chief 
was that on the east, a fortress in itself, surrounded by triple walls, 
of which the outer had a circuit of seven miles, the middle of four 
and a half, and the latter of two and a half miles : the middle wall 
was three hundred feet high, and its towers four hundred and twenty 
feet, and the inner one was higher still. Such statements may 
diminish our surprise at the security in which the inhabitants 
of the city and palace lived under their reckless young prince, Bel- 
shazzar. 

Cyrus wasted no efforts on the impregnable defences, but resolved 
to divert the stream of the Euphrates, and to enter the city by its 
bed. When the work was complete, Belshazzar gave him the oppor- 
tunity for a surprise by that great feast, of which we have so graphic 
an account in the book of Daniel. A thousand of his lords were 
assembled at the banquet ; and the prince, inflamed with wine and 
flattery, ordered the gold and silver vessels of the Temple to be 
brought, that he and his wives and concubines and courtiers might 
drink in them to the praise of their gods. At that moment a hand 
was seen writing upon the wall in the full light of the candelabra. 
Belshazzar, his joints unnerved by fear, cried out for the Chaldaean 
astrologers and soothsayers to be brought before him, and proclaimed 
that the man who could read the writing should be invested with the 
insignia of royalty, and made third ruler in the kingdom. While the 
hand moved slowly on from letter to letter, they confessed their inability 
to read the unknown characters. The king was beside himself with 
terror, when a new personage appeared upon the scene. The "queen," 
who addresses Belshazzar in the tone of authority, was probably his 
mother or his grandmother, and may perhaps be the Nitocris of 
Herodotus. She alone of all the court remembered the wonders that 
had been revealed to Nebuchadnezzar by Daniel, who seems to have 
been deposed from his post as master of the soothsayers. By her 
advice the king sent for him, and repeated his offers of reward. Re- 
jecting them with disdain, Daniel reproached Belshazzarfor not learning 
from the example of Nebuchadnezzar, and for the crowning insult of 
30 



466 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

that night against God. By this time the hand, which had been 
slowly moving over the wall, had completed its awful inscription : — 

MENB, MENE, TEKEL. UPHABSIN: 
Numbered! Numbered! Weight .' and Division (or the Persians). 

11 The days of thy kingdom are numbered and finished, 

Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting . 

Thy kingdom is divided^ and given to the Medes and Persians.'" 

Belshazzar's last act of sovereignty was to confer the promised reward 
oo Daniel. All that is added in the Scripture narrative is this : — 
"In "that night was Belshazzar the kins: of the Chaldaeans slain." 
We learn from other sources that, while the city was sunk in revelrv, 
Cyrus led his army aloug the empty bed of the Euphrates and entered 
by the water-gates, which it had not been thought worth while to 
secure. The soldiers fled. The more distant regions of the vast city 
were taken and set on fire long before the news reached the palace, 
perhaps before Daniel had done expounding the writing on the wall. 
" One post ran to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, 
to show the Kins: of Babvlon that the city was taken at one end, and 
that the passages were stopped, and the reeds they had burnt with 
fire, and the men of war were affrighted."' At last the enemy reached 
the citadel, in the storm of which Belshazzar seems to have met the 
fate which so nearly befell Croesus at Sardis, being slain by some sol- 
diers who did not know him for the king. Nabonadius, his father, 
was taken, as we have seen, at Borsippa ; and thus fell the empire of 
Babylon, little more than twenty years after the height of its splendor 
under Nebuchadnezzar. Its fate furnished not only a great example 
of the fulfilment of ancient and recent prophecies, especially those of 
Isaiah. Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, but also a type of the worldly splendor 
and power, the unbridled insolence, and the conspicuous ruin of the 
future oppressors of the Church of God, and especially of that one — 
whatever it be — which is called in the Apocalypse " Babylon the 
Great, Mystery of Iniquity, Mother of Harlots.'' 

Instead of following the progress of Cyrus, the sacred history re- 
mains with the Jews at Babylon, where we read, simultaneously with 
the death of Belshazzar. that Dabius the Median took (or received) 
the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old. This personage is one 
of the enigmas of sacred history. Till lately it was the fashion to 
identify him with the Cyaxares, whom Xenophon introduces, in the 
" Cyropa?dia." as the son of Astvages ; and great was the triumph in 
this confirmation of Scripture by so philosophic a writer, against the 



CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON. 467 

united testimony of Herodotus and all the other profane historians. 
But not only does the consent of all these historians overbear the ro- 
mance of Xenophon, who evidently imagined the character of Cyax- 
ares as a foil to the virtues of Cyrus ; but their testimony is confirmed 
by Scripture. In the great prophecy of Isaiah it is Cyrus that takes 
Babylon ; and even in Daniel the Persians are the conquerors. 
Darius is too old to be identified with Xenophon's Cyaxares, and his 
father's name is Ahasuerus, which has no affinity with Astyages, but 
which is the very name of Cyaxares, the father of Astyages. This is 
but one of the many arguments in favor of identifying Darius the 
Mede with Astyages himself. We know that Cyrus treated his de- 
throned predecessor with the greatest honor, which he may have 
carried so far as to yield him the outward rank of supreme king dur- 
ing his lifetime; for the Darius of Daniel certainly appears to exer- 
cise an authority over the whole kingdom more extensive than could 
have belonged to a mere governor of Babylon. The testimony of 
Herodotus, and indeed of his own fate, to the weak character of 
Astyages, agrees entirely with the impulsive and vacillating conduct 
of Darius toward Daniel and his enemies. Some chronological diffi- 
culties still remain ; but on the whole, it seems most probable that 
Cyrus committed the civil government, with the whole royal authority, 
to Astyages (Darius), while he himself was completing his new con- 
quest, for a period of two years (b. c. 538-536), and that on the 
death of Darius he assumed the sole sovereignty (b. c. 536). The 
two years of Darius are included in the nine years which are assigned 
to Cyrus in the Babylonian annals (b. c. 538-529), as his real position 
was known to the scribes ; while the close relations of Darius with 
the captive Jews account for their speaking of him as the king, and 
dating the year of his death as the first year of Cyrus. This was the 
glorious year of their own restoration to their land. But before 
opening that new page of their history, we must glance at the last 
days of Daniel and the final fate of Babylon. 

We read that Daniel continued " even unto the first vear 
of King Cyrus;" that is, as the margin of our Bible well 
puts it, " he lived to see that glorious time of the return of his people 
from the Babylonian captivity, though he did not die then." Again 
we read, " This Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the 
reign of Cyrus the Persian." After the death of Nebuchadnezzar, or 
in the dynastic contests which followed the reign of Evil-merodach, 
he seems to have retired into obscurity till he was called forth to in- 
terpret the handwriting on the wall. That proof of prophetic power 



463 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




LIONS OF SYUIA. 



would insure him respect from the conquerors, who seem also to have 
recognized the rank red on him by Belshazzar. Shortly after 

the capture of Babylon we find him employed by the king in some 
commission to Susa Shushan), one of the Median capitals. When 
Darius made a settlement of the provinces, in which we trace the 
germ of the satrapies of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, Daniel was 
made the first of the three u presidents " who were placed over the 120 
•'• princes n of the provinces. The Medo-Persian princes were doubly 
offended at being placed under a Jew by birth and a servant of the 
late dynasty. His administration was too faultless to give an oj>ening 
to their enw ; so they set one of those ingenious traps in which relig- 
ious persecution is concealed under the guise of loyalty. Two of the 
grandest pictures in the Bible are. the faithful servant of Jehovah 
continuing: his prayers thrice a day. neither diminishing their number 
nor withdrawing from hie window which looked toward Jeroe - 

lem, and the cor: — calmly sitting in the den of lions, whose 
mouths God had shut, while the kinsr. who had consented to his 
death, remains restless and tasting. It is superfluous to relate his 
deliverance from the lions, the punishment of his enemies, and the 
proclamation of Darius in honor of Daniel's God. 

After this Daniel enjoyed unbroken prosperity under Darius and 
Cyrus, and doubtless had a share in advising the restoration of the Jews. 
Hia last vision is dated in the third year of Cyrus, b. c. 534. The 
following is a summary of his visions, dreams, and prophecies: 



CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON. 469 

I. In the second year of Nebuchadnezzar, B. c. 603. The interpre- 
tation of the king's dream of the image representing the four great 
empires, namely — 

(1.) The Golden Head: — the Assyrio-Babylonian monarchy. 

(2.) The Silver Breast and Anns : — the Medo-Persian Empire. 

(3.) The Brazen Belly and Thighs : — the Greco-Macedonian king- 
doms, especially, after Alexander, those of Egypt and Syria. 

(4.) The Legs of Iron, the power of Rome, bestriding the East and 
West, but broken up into a number of states, the ten toes, which retained 
some of its warlike strength (the iron), mingled with elements of 
weakness (the soft potter's clay), w T hich rendered the whole imperial 
structure unstable. 

(5.) The Stone cut without hands out of the Living Rock, dashing 
down the image, becoming a mountain and filling all the earth : — the 
Spiritual Kingdom of Christ. 

II. In Nebuchadnezzar's reign, about B. c. 570. The interpretation 
of the king's second dream concerning his madness. 

III. In the first year of Belshazzar, B. c. 540. Daniel's dream of 
the Four Beasts, another symbol of the Four Empires, the ten horns 
of the fourth corresponding to the ten toes of the image ; ending with 
the judgment of the fourth beast by the "Ancient of days," and the 
establishment of the kingdom of the Son of Man. Throughout this 
vision, and especially in the * little horn " which rose up among the 
ten horns as the symbol of some blaspheming enemy of God, we meet 
with those images, common to Daniel and the Apocalypse, which are 
still involved in the obscurity of unfulfilled prophecy. 

IV. In the third year of Belshazzar, probably soon after the fall of 
Babylon, b. c. 538. 

The vision which Daniel saw at Shushan of a conflict between a 
ram and he-goat, the symbols of the Medo-Persian and Macedonian 
powers. The peculiar character of the former is represented by its 
two horns, of which the higher came up last. Alexander is plainly 
represented by the " notable horn " of the he-goat, and his successors 
by the four horns which replaced it. The "little horn " springing 
out of one of the others, and representing " a king of fierce countenance 
and understanding dark sentences," prospering, persecuting, and op- 
posing the Prince of princes, till he is broken without hand, seems to 
correspond to the " little horn " of the preceding dream, and to involve 
similar difficulties. 

V. In the first year of Darius, B. c. 538. Daniel, having read in 
the prophecies of Jeremij|h that God would accomplish seventy years 



470 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

in the desolations of Jerusalem, set himself to seek God with fasting 
and the garb of mourning. His prayer and confession on this occa- 
sion forms a model of all such supplications. It was answered by the 
mission of the angel Gabriel, who now appears for the first time as 
the special herald of God's purposes. He comes to Daniel to an- 
nounce the beginning of the period, the close of which he proclaimed 
to Zacharias. His message constitutes the celebrated Prophecy of the 
Seventy Weeks, the leading idea of which, regarded as an answer to 
Daniel's prayer, seems to be that God would mercifully recompense 
his people for their captivity at Babylon by a new possession of their 
land for seven times that period, until the whole history of the nation 
should be crowned, and its religious institutions finished, by the 
advent and sacrifice of Messiah the prince. 

We cannot here enter into the minute details of the ex- 
B C 536 

position. It is enough to point out that, from the final 

and effectual edict of Artaxerxes Longimanus for the rebuilding of 
Jerusalem (b. c. 457) to the death of Christ (a. d. 33) was just four 
hundred and ninety years. 

VI. In the third year of Cyrus, B. c. 534. The vision of the Son 
of God to Daniel on the banks of the Hiddekel (Tigris), in the same 
glorious form in which he appeared to St. John in Patmos, and the 
prophecy that followed. Throughout this prophecy both the imagery 
and the substance bear a close analogy to the Apocalypse. There can 
be little doubt that the earlier part relates to the contests between the 
two Greek kingdoms of Syria and Egypt, which disputed the mastery 
of Judsea ; but it is clear that at some point a transition is made to 
the final mysteries of God's government and judgment. How the 
study of those mysteries ought to be approached, we learn from the 
prophecy itself. Daniel is bidden to " shut up the words and seal the 
book, even to the time of the end." When that time is so near that 
God reveals his purposes to his people, as he did to Daniel from the 
books of Jeremiah, the Lamb in the midst of the throne will open 
the volume, seal by seal, and page by page, while his servants " run 
to and fro on the earth, and knowledge shall be increased." Then 
all conflicting guesses will cease respecting the "time and times and 
dividing of a time," the 1290 and the 1335 days. "None of the 
wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand." Mean- 
while, " Blessed is he that waiteth," and blessed especially the man 
who is distinguished above all others by the assurance in God's own 
word of his personal salvation : — 

" He only of the sons oLmfn 
Named to be heir of glory then." 



CAPTIVITY AT BABYLON. 



471 




TOMB OF CYRUS. 



But, though he alone is named, all who share his faith and follow his 
piety may take the comfort of the words with which this most perfect 
of all Scripture characters is dismissed from the scene : — " But thou, 
go thy way to the end : for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the 
end of the days." 

How different the end of the great city in which he delivered his 
testimony for God ! Its fall was delayed for many years. It must 
have suffered greatly in its capture by Cyrus, and again in the reign 
of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, when it was the seat of a rebellion 
under a person who called himself " Nebuchadnezzar, the son of 
Nabonadius." But it remained the second city of the Persian Em- 
pire, and the residence of the king during the greater part of the year. 
Alexander ended his career in the city, which .he had designed to 
renovate for his capital. The Seleucid kings of Syria transferred the 
capital to Antioch, while they chose a more eligible site on the Tigris 
for the frontier city of Seleucia, to which most of the inhabitants of 
Babylon removed. The houses were deserted, and the walls became 
quarries for building-materials. The site of the city was gradually 
swept over by the neglected river, while the mounds around it 
crumbled into the moat from which they were dug. "Babylon 
became heaps, a dwelling-place for l dragons,' an astonishment and a 
hissing, without an inhabitant ;" fulfilling to the very letter the 
prophetic visions of its utter desolation, and presenting a lively image 
of the fate reserved for the mystic Babylon of later days. Only in 



4?2 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

our own days have those " heaps " given up the monuments of the 
city's grandeur, and the records from which w r e may hope to gain 
confirmations and illustrations of Scripture history as signal as the 
witness borne by the ruins themselves to the truth of Scripture 
prophecy. 

Xot only the site of Babylon herself, but the whole plain of Baby- 
lonia, covered with the shapeless heaps under which the great Chal- 
dasan cities lie hidden, bears a perpetual witness to the truth of the 
prophecy every word of which is a historic description : — "Her cities 
are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no 
man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby." " Besides 
the great mound," says the most distinguished investigator of the site, 
" other shapeless heaps of rubbish cover for many an acre the face of 
the land. The lofty banks of ancient canals fret the country, like 
natural ridges of hills. Some have been long choked with sand ; 
others still carry the waters of the river to distant villages and palm- 
groves. On all sides fragments of glass, marble, pottery, and inscribed 
brick are mingled with that peculiar nitrous and blanched soil which, 
bred from the remains of ancient habitations, checks or destroys 
vegetation, and renders the site of Babylon a naked and hideous 
waste. Owls start from the scanty thickets, and the foul jackal 
skulks through the furrows." 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY. 4?3 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE RESTORED JEWISH NATION AND CHURCH — FROM THE DECREE OF CYRUS 

TO THE CLOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 

[b. c. 536-400 ?] 

\JS the first year of his sole reign at Babylon (b. c. 536), Cyrus 
issued a decree for the rebuilding of the Temple, in the lan- 
guage of which we trace the advice of Daniel. We are not 
only assured that the king's spirit was stirred up to this 
measure by God, that the word spoken by Jeremiah might be 
fulfilled, but the proclamation itself acknowledged the God of Israel as 
the God, and that He, who had given Cyrus all the kingdoms of the 
earth, had charged him to build Him a house at Jerusalem, 
in Judah. He therefore invited the people of God through- 
out his empire to go up to the work, and charged those among whom 
they dwelt to help them with gold and goods and cattle. 

The response to this act of noble generosity — for such is its true 
character, whatever secondary motives may have been mixed up with 
it — was the more easy, as the captive Jews had preserved their gene- 
alogies', and their patriarchal constitution under their princes. It is 
even said that they had a kind of ruler, called the " Head of the Cap- 
tivity," or "Captain of the people;" but this is very doubtful. So 
the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, with the priests and 
Levites, whose families are enumerated by Ezra, rose up to the work. 
Their neighbors made them liberal presents, beside freewill offerings 
for the Temple ; and Cyrus caused his treasurer Mithredath to deliver 
the vessels of the Temple which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away, 
5400 in number, to Sheshbazzar, or Zerubbabel, the prince of Judah, 
who was the leader of the migration. Thus, as the Israelites had gone 
forth from the first captivity laden with the spoils of Egypt, so now 
they returned from the second enriched with the free-will offerings of 
Assyria, to be consecrated to the service of Jehovah. 

But they carried back greater riches than all the treasures of Persia, 
in the moral gains of their captivity. Throughout the history of the 
monarchy we have never lost sight of the fact that that form of gov- 
ernment was itself a departure from the will of God. The attempt to 
consolidate the nation violated the constitution of the Church. 



474 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Though, on the great principle of condescension and forbearance, God 
made this defection the occasion of his new covenant with David, the 
inherent vices of the monarchy broke out into that long course of 
idolatry and worldly pride, which was cut short by the captivities of 
both branches of the nation. After the captivity we hear no more of 
these forms of evil. Too soon, indeed, we find the commencement of 
other corruptions natural to fallen man, the spiritual pride and moral 
iniquity, which had utterly corrupted the people before the coming of 
Christ. But the seeds of those vices were as yet hidden in individual 
hearts. The people again presented, as in the wilderness, the outward 
aspect of the Church of the living God. Owing their revived political 
existence to the will of Persia, they could not at first establish a new 
monarchy ; nor was the attempt ever made, till the usurpation of an 
alien — Herod the Idumsean — seemed to challenge their true King, the 
Christ, to assert His rights. The people seem to have learned to 
wait for His kingdom, and their political dependence gave freer scope 
to their religious organization. Religion had shared the evils of the 
kingdom. Our admiration for the magnificence of Solomon's Temple 
is not unmingled with a misgiving of some loss of spirituality, and its 
destruction broke through a tradition which leaned toward an undue 
reliance upon ceremonies. The second Temple, so strikingly inferior 
in outward splendor, nay, wanting even the visible sign of Jehovah's 
presence in the Shekinah, became a centre of more spiritual worship. 
While the great festivals, like the other Mosaic institutions, were for 
the first time punctually observed, the experience of the captivity, and 
the examples of such men as Daniel, had taught the people that God 
might be worshipped not at Jerusalem only ; and their local meetings 
in the Synagogues, which some suppose to have begun during the 
captivity, became a regular institution. The Scriptures, collected into 
a " Canon " soon after the return, superseded the prophetic office ; 
their regular reading in the synagogues prevented that ignorance which 
had been so fatal under the monarchy ; and the " scribes," who devoted 
themselves to their exposition, shared the respect paid to the priests and 
Levites. Prayer, private as well as public, regained that supreme 
place in God's worship, which had been usurped by rites and ceremo- 
nies. The Sabbath, which the prophets never cease to represent as 
the keystone both of religion and of the charities of social life, was 
firmly established, after a sharp contest with worldly selfishness. 
Idolatry was henceforth unknown ; and the attempt of the Syrian 
kings to impose its practice adorned the Jewish Church with a cloud 
of martyrs, whose constancy confirms the many other proofs that the 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY. 415 

people had attained to a more spiritual faith. The shades of this fair 
picture were as yet in the background, and the current of the history 
brings them into prominence soon enough. They are the vices which 
our corrupt nature distils from these virtues; spiritual pride, pervert- 
ing the uses of God's worship ; oppression and immorality, excused 
by the privileges of God's people. 

The number of the. people forming the first caravan, 
whom Ezra reckons, not only by their families, but by the 
cities of Judah and Benjamin, and other tribes, to which they be- 
longed, with the priests and Levites, amounted in all to 42,360, 
besides 7367 men-servants and maid-servants. They had 736 horses, 
245 mules, 435 camels, and 6720 asses. These numbers may seem 
small, in contrast to the former population of Judsea ; but they are 
large, as compared with the enumeration given above of the several 
captivities. They no doubt included many of the Ten Tribes, for 
Cyrus addressed his proclamation to all the servants of God through- 
out the empire ; and it was responded to, not only by the fathers of 
Judah and Benjamin, but " by all whose spirit God had raised." In 
fact, though the new nation are called Jews, the distinction of the 
tribes disappears (except in their pedigrees), and subsequent jealousies 
are religious and local, as those against Samaria and Nazareth. 
Those, however, who undertook the journey were doubtless a con- 
siderable minority of the captives, who, as directed by Jeremiah, had 
settled down quietly in the land of their captivity, built houses, and 
planted vineyards. Some followed at a later period. Others re- 
mained behind, forming what was called the "Dispersion:" and how 
numerous these were in all the provinces of the empire we see in the 
book of Esther. 

The little band of 50,000, so few and weak in comparison of the 
host that crossed the Jordan under Joshua, were led by Zerubbabel, 
prince of Judah, and grandson of Jehoiachin, who was appointed 
Tirshatha, or governor of Judaea. With him were associated the 
high-priest Jeshua, and ten of the chief elders. We have no record 
of the journey; but the lxxxivth Psalm describes the triumph of 
their pious zeal to behold the house of God over all the hardships 
of the way. After visiting their desolate cities, they assembled in 
the seventh month (Tisri=Sept.-Oct.) at Jerusalem, to rebuild the 
altar and offer their first sacrifices at the Feast of Tabernacles. 
Though dreading the hostility of the surrounding nations, they pre- 
pared to build the Temple, hiring masons and carpenters with the 
money they had brought, and preparing provisions for the Tyrians 



476 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

and Sidonians, who had been commanded by Cyrus to bring cedar- 
trees from Lebanon by sea to Joppa, as Hiram had done for Solomon. 

In the second month of the following year (Jyar=Apr.-May, B. c. 
535), the foundation of the Temple was laid with great solemnities, 
amid the sound of trumpets and the chorus of the sons of Asaph, 
" praising and giving thanks unto Jehovah, because he is good, for 
his mercy endureth forever toward Israel." But the shouts of the 
people were mingled with the weeping of the priests and elders who 
had seen the glory of the first house, so that the cries of joy could 
hardly be distinguished from those of sorrow. 

The work was not long permitted to proceed in quiet. The de- 
scendants of the Cuthsean colonists whom Esar-haddon had settled in 
Samaria, and whose strange mixture of idolatry with the worship of 
Jehovah has already been related, were not slow to claim affinity 
with a people so favored by Cyrus. Their request to join in building 
the Temple was indignantly rejected by the Jews, who regarded them 
as idolaters and "adversaries;" and they used all their efforts to earn 
the latter title. By hired influence at the court, as well as by their 
opposition on the spot, the building of the Temple was hindered till 
the reign of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. The narrative of these 
transactions is somewhat perplexed by the different opinions held re- 
specting the Persian kings, whose names are mentioned in the books 
of Ezra, Esther, and Nehemiah. The following table exhibits the 
succession of these kings by their ordinary Greek names, with the 
names which most probably correspond to them in Scripture. 

Beginning of each reign, B. c. 

1. Cyaxares, king of Media 634 

Ahasuerus : Dan. ix. 1 . 

2. Astyages, his son, last king of Media 594 

Darius the Mede. 

3. Cyrus, son of his daughter and Cambyses, a Persian noble, 

founder of the Persian Empire 559 

Cyrus begins to reign at Babylon Jan. 5, 538 

4. Cambyses, his son Jan. 3, 529 

Ahasuerus : Ezra iv. 6. 

5. Gomates, a Magian usurper (about Jan. 1\ who personated 

Smerdis, the younger son of Cyrus. (Reigns seven months)... 522 
Artaxerxes : Ezra iv. 7, etc. 

6. Darius, the son of Hystaspes. A Persian noble, raised to the 

throne on the overthrow of Gomates Jan. 1, 521 

Darius : Ezra iv. 5, 24, v., vi. 

7. Xerxes, his son Dec. 23, 480 

Ahasuerus : Esther. 

8. Artaxerxes Longimanus, his son Dec. 7, 465 

Artaxerxes, Ezra vii., Nehemiah End of his reign, Dec. 17, 423 

The subsequent kings, Xerxes II. (Sogdianus), Darius II. (Nothus), 
Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon), Artaxerxes III. (Ochus), and Darius III. 
(Codomannus), are not named in Scripture. 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY. 4TT 

Cyrus does not seem to have wavered in his Jewish policy, but 
his wars in Asia will account for the impediments permitted to delay 
the building of the Temple during the remainder of his reign. 

His son, Cambyses, was too much occupied with his one great 
enterprise against Egypt to take any notice of the letter of accusation 
against the Jews which the "adversaries" sent to him at the begin- 
ning of his reign, B. c. 529. 

They were more successful with the usurper Gomates, to whom 
they artfully suggested a search in the records of the kingdom, to 
prove that Jerusalem had been destroyed for its continual rebellions. 
The answer was a rescript bidding the work to cease, armed with 
which, the officers of Samaria, Rehum, Shimshai, and their compan- 
ions went up to Jerusalem, and put an end for the time to the build- 
ing of the Temple, b. c. 522. 

The restoration of order under Darius, the son of 
b c 520 

Hystaspes, was the signal for new hopes and efforts. In 

the second year of his reign (b. c. 520), the prophets Haggai and 
Zechariah, the son of Iddo, commenced the exhortations and 
promises, mingled with reproofs and warnings, which we read in 
their books. The rebuilding of the Temple was resumed by 
Zerubbabel and Jeshua, who appear in the prophecies of Zechariah as 
types of the great Prince and Priest of the approaching reign of holi- 
ness. They had to deal, not with malignant adversaries, but with 
the just authorities of a settled government. Being called to account 
for their conduct by Tatnai, the Persian governor west of the Eu- 
phrates, they appealed to the edict of Cyrus, which was found among 
the records at Ecbatana, and the discovery brought a new edict from 
Darius, not only permitting the work, but bidding his officers to aid 
them with supplies, and threatening all who hindered them with the 
severest penalties. So the work went on and prospered, under the 
constant encouragement of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah ; and 
the house was finished on the third of the twelfth month (Adar= 
Feb.-March), in the sixth year of Darius (b. c. 515), twenty-one 
years after its commencement. 

The Feast of Dedication was kept with great joy. Be- 
sides the 700 victims offered for a burnt-offering, twelve 
goats were offered for a sin-offering "for all Israel" one for each 
tribe — a decisive proof that the returned " children of the captivity " 
regarded themselves as the representatives of all Israel. The courses 
of the priests and Lcvites were set in order, according to the law of 
Moses and the institutions of David. It was found that only four of 



478 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the original courses of priests were represented ; but, by the division 
of each into six, the number of twenty-four was restored, and the old 
names were adopted. The solemnities were concluded by the keeping 
of the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month and of the 
seven days of the unleavened bread. 

In b. c. 486 Darius was succeeded by Xeexes, whose repulse from 
Greece fills so memorable a page in the history of Europe, but whose 
place in the annals of the Jews depends on his identification with the 
Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther. The story of the offence given to 
the king by the haughty Queen Vashti, which led to her divorce, 
and to the choice of the Jewess, Hadassah, or Esther, as his consort, 
four years afterward ; the spite of Hainan the Agagite, because Mor- 
decai, the guardian of Esther, refused to do him reverence, and his 
plot to destroy all the Jews throughout the 127 provinces of the em- 
pire on one day ; the self-devotion of Esther for her people ; the re- 
wards heaped on Mordecai for his ancient services to the kingdom, 
and the hanoqno- of Hainan on the callows he had built for the hated 
Jews; the permission to the Jews to defend themselves, and the conse- 
quent slaughter of 75,000 of their enemies on the thirteenth of Adar 
(Feb.-March), besides 800 slain at the palace of Shushan (Susa) on 
that and the following day ; and the appointment of the fourteenth 
and fifteenth of Adar, on which they rested from slaying their ene- 
mies, for the great Feast of Purim : all these incidents are familiar to 
us in the beautiful narrative of the book of Esther ; and no scene of 
Scripture history is more often applied to a spiritual use, than her 
bold venture into the presence of the " king of kings," and his reach- 
ing out to her the golden sceptre as the sign of grace (b. c. 474). 

A natural reluctance to identify this noble woman with 
Xerxes's cruel wife Amestris, whose name bears some re- 
semblance to Esther, is the chief objection to the identification of 
Ahasuerus with Xerxes. But the former hypothesis is quite un- 
founded, as will presently appear. The description of the Persian 
Empire as containing 127 provinces, and reaching from India to 
Ethiopia, can apply to no reign before that of Darius, the son of Hv- 
staspes, who is therefore taken by Ussher and others for Ahasuerus. 
But Darius is a genuine royal name, as distinct from Ahasuerus as 
his character is from the capricious tyrant of the book of Esther, and 
his two wives were the daughters of Cyrus and Otanes. Others fix 
on Artaxerxes Mnemon, whose name is, like Xerxes, the equivalent 
of Ahasuerus. But this hypothesis is negatived by the relations of 
Artaxerxes to the Jews, to whom he issues a favorable decree in the 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY. 479 




TOMB OF ESTHER AND MOItDECAI. 



seventh year of his reign, while Ahasuerus, in his twelfth year, is 
so ignorant of the character of the nation as to be imposed upon by 
the calumnies of Haman ; nor does the character of the latter agree 
with that of Ataxcrxes. Any later king is out of the question. Be- 
ing thus brought back to Xerxes, whose name is the Greek form of 
Ahasuerus, it only remains to compare the dates of the book of 



430 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Esther with the history of his reign, the leading events of which are, 
his accession in B. c. 486 (Dec. 23), his expedition to Greece in his 
sixth year, B. C. 480, and his death at the end of his twenty-first year, 
b. c. 465 (Dec. 17). Now the great feast of Abasuerus, at which 
Vashti refused to appear, was in the third year of his reign, B. c. 
483, the very year in which Xerxes held a great assembly to arrange 
the Grecian war, and his marriage with Esther was in his seventh 
year, B. c. 479, the year after the expedition to Greece, when Xerxes 
might naturally seek in his harem some consolation for his repulse. 
But Amestris, who was the daughter of Otanes, the uncle of Xerxes, 
had been his wife long before the expedition to Greece, in which her 
sons were old enough to accompany him, and the eldest of them, 
Darius, married at the very time of his father's marriasre to Esther. 
For all these reasons Esther cannot be Amestris ; and, considering the 
polygamy of the Persian kings, it is not surprising that Herodotus 
should mention only two of the wives of Xerxes, and the book of 
Esther two others. The affairs of Xerxes after his flight from Greece 
are only noticed by the Greek historians as they affect the Hellenic race. 
« These events at the court, and the elevation of Mordecai 
to the post of prime minister, must have had a favorable 
influence on the affairs of the restored Jews ; but we have no further 
details of their history till Ezra appears upon the scene, in the seventh 
year of Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus), B. c. 458. Ezra occupies a 
place toward the end of the history of the Old Covenant, resembling 
in many respects that of Moses at the beginning. He was a priest 
descended from the line of the later high-priests. His father Seraiah 
was the grandson of Hilkiah, high-priest in the reign of Josiah. 
Ezra was especially distinguished for his knowledge of the Scriptures, 
"a ready scribe in the law of Moses." Living at Babylon, he gained 
the favor of Artaxerxes, and obtained from him a commission to go 
up to Jerusalem. The restored Jews had already fallen into great 
declension, and Ezra's study in God's law had stirred him up to a 
work of reformation ; " For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the 
law of Jehovah, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judg- 
ment-." Every step he takes is marked by some devout acknowledg- 
ment of the help of God " according to the good hand of his God 
upon him." 

The king's commission invited all the Israelites and priests and 
Levites in the whole empire who so wished to go with Ezra, who was 
sent by the king and his seven councillors to inquire concerning 
Judah and Jerusalem ; bearing offerings from the king and his coun- 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY. 481 

cillors and freewill-offerings from the people, to buy sacrifices and to 
decorate the Temple, besides vessels for its service. All the treasurers 
beyond the Euphrates were commanded to supply his wants, and the 
priests and ministers of the temple were exempted from taxation. Ezra 
was commanded to appoint and instruct magistrates and judges over 
the people beyond the river, with authority to punish, even to death, 
all who broke the law of God and the king. 

Ezra set out from Babylon with his companions, to the number of 
six thousand, including many children, on the first day of the first 
month (end of March, b. c. 458). The journey occupied exactly four 
months, including a halt for three days at Ahava, where he collected 
his caravan, and obtained an accession of two hundred and twenty 
Nethinim from Iddo, the chief of the Levites at Casiphia. Ashamed 
to ask a guard from the king, whom he had assured of God's power to 
protect them, Ezra kept a fast at Ahava to pray for a prosperous 
journey ; and this second caravan arrived safe at Jerusalem on the 
first day of the fifth month (end of July, B. c. 458). After resting 
three days the treasure and vessels were delivered to the priests, 
burnt sacrifices were offered by the returned exiles, and the king's 
commissions were delivered to all the satraps west of the Euphrates. 

On applying himself to the work of reformation, Ezra found the 
people already jnfected with the evil that had proved the root of all 
former mischief, intermarriage with the idolatrous nations around 
them. His first care was to impress them with the enormity of the 
sin. The example of his public mourning and prayer led some of the 
chief persons to come forward, and at their suggestion the whole peo- 
ple were summoned to Jerusalem on penalty of forfeiture and expul- 
sion from the congregation. They assembled on the twentieth day of 
the ninth month (December, B. c. 458) amid a storm of rain, and, 
having confessed their sin, they proceeded to the remedy with order 
and deliberation. All the strange wives were put away, including 
even those who had borne children, by the beginning of the new year 
(end of March, b. c. 457). At this point the account of Ezra's pro- 
ceedings ends abruptly with the book that bears his name, and he does 
not appear again till thirteen years later, as the associate of Nehemiah. 
To the period of Ezra's reform should probably be referred the later 
prophecies of Zechariah, which relate to the declension, rejection, and 
ultimate restoration of the Jews, and to the glories of the kingdom 
of Jesus Christ. 

44r In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (b. c. 445) grievous 

tidings from Jerusalem reached the royal winter residence 
31 



482 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



at Shushan. Whether Ezra had returned after executing his com- 
mission, or whether the instability of the Jews and the malice of their 
enemies had been too much for him, things were in a worse state than 
at any time since the Captivity. The people of Judaea were in afflic- 
tion and reproach, the wall of Jerusalem was still broken down and 
the gates burned, as they had been left by Nebuchadnezzar. This 
news was brought by Hanani and other Jews of Judaea to Nehemiah, 
the son of Hachaliah, who appears to have belonged to the tribe of 
Judah, and who held the office of cup-bearer to Artaxerxes. Over- 
whelmed with the tidings, he fasted, and prayed God to incline the 
king's heart to grant his desire to help his brethren. At the end of 
four months (Chisleu to Nisan, November to March, b. c. 444) an 

opportunity offered itself, 
on the king's observing 
his cup-bearer's sadness. 
Nehemiah explained its 
cause, and obtained leave 
of absence for a fixed 
time, with letters to the 
governors west of the 
Euphrates to aid his jour- 
ney, and to Asaph, the 
keeper of the king's for- 
est, to supply him with 
timber. Already, before 
his arrival at Jerusalem, 
he became aware of the 
hostility of Sanballat the 
Horonite, and Tobiah the 
Ammonite, but he only resolved to do his work with the greater 
speed. After the usual three days of rest or purification he took a 
private view of the city by night, and then summoned the rulers to 
the work. Led on by the high-priest Eliashib, all of them, except 
the nobles of the Tekoites, labored heart and hand at their regu- 
larly appointed stations. The wall soon rose, and the gateways were 
rebuilt. 

But now Sanballat and Tobiah, who had at first scorned the idea of 
the feeble Jews fortifying their city, and had mocked at their wall as 
too weak for a fence against jackals, became seriously alarmed. A 
conspiracy was formed of the Arabians and Ammonites and the 
Philistines of Ashdod, for an attack upon Jerusalem before the forti- 




WALLS OF JERUSALEM. 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY 



433 



fication was complete. Warned by the Jews who dwelt among them, 
Nehemiah called the people to arms behind the half-finished bulwarks. 
This attitude of resistance disconcerted the plot; but henceforth half 
of the people remained under arms, while the other half labored at 
the work, girded with their swords. Nehemiah kept a trumpeter 
always by his side to sound the alarm, and neither he nor his guard 
put off their clothes except for washing. 

Amid all this anxiety, he found time for internal reform. 
aaa aoo ^ ne unse ttled state of the nation, and the pressure of the 
king's tribute, had reduced the poorer citizens to destitution. 
They had mortgaged their lands and vineyards to their brethren, 
who, moreover, exacted usury from them contrary to the law, 
and many of them were sinking, with their families, into slavery 
through their debts. In a 
solemn assembly Nehemiah 
rebuked the unmerciful 
creditors and usurers, and 
bound them by an oath to 
release the persons and 
lands of their debtors. He 
himself set the example of 
disinterestedness ; keeping 
a table for one hundred and 
fifty Jews, besides any who 
returned from exile from 
time to time, and yet de- 
clining to draw the allow- 
ance which had been paid 
to previous governors, dur- 
ing the whole twelve years of his rule (b. c. 445-433). 

When Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshern saw that the walls were 
finished, the breaches repaired, and that only the gates remained to be 
hung, they began new plots. Unhappily they were aided by a party 
of the nobles of Judah, turbulent and rebellious as ever, with whom 
Tobiah and his son Johanan were connected by family alliances. 
Their scheme was to frighten Nehemiah with a charge of suspected 
treason. Having failed to entrap him by the proposal of a confer- 
ence, they wrote to him four times, and the fifth time they sent an 
open letter, that the charge might be made public, declaring that it 
was reported among the heathen nations round about that the Jews 
intended to rebel, and that Nehemiah was fortifying the city witli the 




STREET IX JERUSALEM. 



484 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

intention of making himself king. They charged him with appointing 
prophets to preach the news, " There is a king in Judah," and threat- 
ened to report the whole matter to the king unless Nehemiah would 
grant them a conference; The prophet Shemaiah was hired to 
frighten Nehemiah into a step for his own protection, which would 
have amounted to an act of treason. He contented himself with an 
indignant denial of the charge made in the letters, and with appealing 
to the judgment of God against Shemaiah, the prophetess Noadiah, 
and the others who tried to frighten him. 

The walls bein£ finished and the gates hung, and the 

b c 444 . . . . . 

porters and singers and Levites appointed to their stations, 

Nehemiah committed the charge of the city to his brother Hanani 

and to Hananiah, the ruler of the palace. The gates were kept barred 

till the sun was hot, and the people were arranged in watches. Such 

care was the more needful, as the city was still much too large for its 

inhabitants, and few houses were yet built. By the seventh month 

(Tisri= September-October, b. c. 444), that is, the beginning of the 

civil new year, the people were settled in their city, and Nehemiah 

had completed the register of their genealogies. 

The ensuing month, the one especially allotted by Moses to joyful 
religious celebrations, was celebrated as an inauguration of the people 
into their new life. If not according to the calendar " the year of 
release," in which the law was to be read before all the people, it well 
deserved that title in their annals. Now, for the first time since the 
decree of Cyrus for their return, they could meet to worship God 
under the protection of their ramparts, with their new liberties, nay, 
their very existence as a nation, no longer at the mercy of their in- 
veterate enemies. On the first day of the month the people were 
gathered as one man in the street before the water-gate, and Ezra 
again appears among them. At their desire he produced the Book 
of the Law, and having opened it amid marks of the deepest rever- 
ence from all the people, he read it to an audience wrapped in 
attention from morning to midday. The manner of reading was this: 
Ezra stood on a pulpit, with six Scribes or Levites on his right hand 
and seven on his left, who seem to have relieved him in the reading; 
for it is said, " they read in the book in the law of God distinctly." 

The people stood in their ranks in front of the pulpit ; and among 
them were thirteen other ministers, who, with the assistance of the 
Levites, " caused the people to understand the law." There can be 
little doubt that this phrase refers to a translation of what Ezra read 
in Hebrew into the mixed Chaldee dialect, which had become the 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY. 485 

vernacular tongue during the Captivity. The book which was thus 
read was probably not merely the Pentateuch, but the whole body of 
sacred writings, which had been collected into one volume by the care 
of Ezra, the first great Scribe, and which formed in substance what 
we call the Book of the Old Covenant. 

The reading produced au impression like that made on Josiah. 
All the people wept at what they heard ; not only, we may well 
believe, with regret at the past glories of their nation, but at the 
recital of the sins for which that glory had departed, not unmixed 
with a penitent consciousness of their own guilt. But Nehemiah 
(who is now first mentioned in the transaction), supported by Ezra 
and the Levites, bade them cease their sorrow, and go home to " eat 
the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom 
nothing was prepared, for the day was holy to Jehovah." The 
people went away to make great mirth, because they understood the 
words that were declared unto them. When the reading was resumed 
on the following day, they came to the institution of the Feast of 
Tabernacles in this very month of Tisri. Their excited minds caught 
the signal for fresh rejoicing in Jehovah. They went forth into the 
mount to fetch branches of olive, and pine, and myrtle, and palm, 
and thick trees, and made booths on the roofs and in the courts 
of their houses, in the Temple court and along the streets to the city 
gates. Such a Feast of Tabernacles had not been kept since the days 
of Joshua. The reading of the law was continued for all the seven 
days of the feast, and the eighth was a solemn assembly, as Moses 
had commanded. 

After the burst of joy for God's mercy in restoring them, they 
turned to the solemn duty of humiliation and repentance for their 
sins. The Day of Atonement ought to have been kept on the tenth 
of this month. It had probably been passed over, as requiring more 
solemn preparation and a more orderly arrangement of the Temple- 
service than was yet possible. In its place a fast was held two days 
after the Feast of Tabernacles, on the 24th day of Tisri. All who 
were of the seed of Israel, carefully separating themselves from the 
strangers, appeared in the deepest mourning, clad in sackcloth, and 
with earth upon their heads. The day seems to have been divided 
into four equal parts, only broken by the intervals necessary for re- 
freshment. The first three hours were devoted to the reading of the 
law. The morning sacrifice fitly introduced the second quarter, 
which was spent in silent confession and prayer. When the hour of 
noon was past, the Levites, arranged on the steps of the Temple porch, 



486 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

or on a scaffold erected for the purpose, called upon the people to 
stand up and bless Jehovah. Then in a solemn hymn, the epitome 
of which is a fit model for all such services, they recited God's mercies 
from the first call of Abram ; they confessed the sins of their fore- 
fathers, and God's forbearance in punishing without utterly consuming 
them : and they acknowledged his justice in their present state of 
humiliation and great distress, as servants to the kings set over them 
for their sins, to whom their land yielded its increase, and who had 
dominion over their bodies and cattle at their pleasure. Submissive 
to God's will, they ended by making a new covenant with him; and 
before the sun set, it was recorded in writing, and sealed by the 
princes, priests, and Levites, who.^e names are recorded by Xehemiah, 
while the rest of the people bound themselves by a curse and an oath 
to walk in the law which God had given by Moses. The chief points 
of this covenant were : To make no intermarriages with the heathen ; 
to abstain from traffic on the Sabbath, and to keep the sabbatic year, 
with its release of all debts ; to pay a yearly tax of a third of a shekel 
for the services of the sanctuary, which are carefully enumerated ; to 
offer the first-fruits and first-born, and the tithes due to the Levites 
and the priests; and in one final word, "We will not forsake the 
house of our God." To most points of this covenant they remained 
faithful in the letter. The sins of the Jewish nation took henceforth 
a direction altogether different from the open-rebellion and apostasy 
of their fathers. The more scrupulous their observance of the law, 
the more did they make it void by their traditions and pervert it to 
serve their selfishness. 

Before the people departed to their homes, it was necessary to de- 
cide who of them should fix their abode at Jerusalem, which would 
have been left almost without inhabitants, had all taken up their 
residence on their old family allotments about the several cities and 
villages. It is a striking proof of the attachment of the Jews to their 
patrimonial possessions, that the safer residence behind the walls of 
Jerusalem should not have been the object of competition. But it 
was regarded as a sacrifice to live there; "And the people blessed all 
the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell at Jerusalem. 
The rulers took up their abode in the capital : and for the rest every 
tenth man was chosen by lot to live there." The language of Xehe- 
miah would almost seem to imply that those of the people who 
belonged to Israel (the Ten Tribes) had their possessions assigned in 
the cities of Judah, and that the inhabitants of Jerusalem were 
taken from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The priests and 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY. 487 

Levites were divided in due proportions between the city and the 
country. 

On the completion of all these arrangements a great festival was 
held for the Dedication of the Wall of Jerusalem. The priests and 
Levites, called together from all the cities of Judah, purified the walls 
and the people. The rulers were divided into two parts, which went 
round the walls in procession to the right and to the left, the one 
headed by Ezra and the other by Nehemiah, each with his train of 
priests and Levites, blowing the trumpets and singing thanks to God. 
The day was crowned with great sacrifices, and their shouts of joy 
sounded from the rock of Zion far and wide over the hills of Judah. 
The only remaining records of Nehemiah's twelve years' government 
relate to the provision made for the priests and Levites and singers, 
and the separation of the Ammonites and Moabites from the congre- 
gation, according to the sentence pronounced on them by Moses — 
another indication of the reconstitution of the Church of Jehovah. 

In the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, 
b c 433 . 

B. c. 433, Nehemiah returned to the Persian court. After 

an interval, of what length we know not, he obtained the king's per- 
mission to go and visit Jerusalem again, in order to reform serious 
abuses which had grown up through the weakness of the high -priest 
Eliashib and the rapacity of the princes. The former had not only 
yielded the claims of Tobiah, which Nehemiah had so firmly re- 
sisted, while his grandson had married a daughter of the other adver- 
sary, Sanballat, but Eliashib had also prepared for Tobiah a large 
chamber in the court of the Temple, which had been used as a store- 
house for the sacred vessels, the meat-offerings, and frankincense, and 
the tithes of corn, wine, and oil for the Levites, all of which had been 
removed to make room for the furniture of Tobiah. Nehemiah cleared 
out the furniture, and caused the chambers of the Temple to be puri- 
fied, and restored to their uses. The Levites, defrauded of their tithes, 
had betaken themselves to the Levitical cities, so that the Temple 
was deserted. Nehemiah gathered them together again, compelled 
the rulers to do them justice, and the people to bring the tithes, and 
appointed faithful treasurers. He most indignantly reproved the 
nobles for the profanation of the Sabbath, as the sin which had brought 
the wrath of God upon their fathers. In the cities of Judah wine- 
presses were trodden on the holy day, and the gates of Jerusalem were 
crowded with Tyrian and other merchants, who carried in the supplies 
of luxury for a great city. Nehemiah had the city gates shut from 
dusk till the end of the Sabbath, and guarded by his servants. At 



438 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

first the merchants pitched their tents round the wall ; but Xeheiniah 
called the Levites to guard the gates, and the Sabbath trading was 
abolished. His last reform dealt with the old evil of the mixed mar- 
riages, which had again been contracted with women of Amnion, 
Moab, and Ashdod, to such an extent that children were heard talking 
in a dialect half Jewish and half in the language of Ashdod. By the 
most energetic measures, Nehemiah exacted an oath of the offenders 
to abstain from all such alliances ; and he expelled from the priesthood 
a son of Joiada, the son of the high-priest Eliashib, for his marriage 
with the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite. 

Neherniah's narrative of these reforms is interspersed with the fre- 
quent appeal, " Remember me, O ray God, for good, and spare me 
according to the greatness of thy mercy ; wipe not out my good deeds 
that I have done for the house of my God, and for the observances 
thereof." His prayer has been answered ever since in the preservation 
of his book as a part of Holy Scripture: — the record of pure religious 
.zeal, tempered with that prudence which is one of the highest duties 
of a governor, of unbending fidelity and self-denying liberality, all for 
the glory and in the fear of God. 

We have no further information of Xehemiah's life ; and, before 
returning to the important but uncertain questions relating to Ezra, a 
few words must be said of the Prophet, whose book ends the Scrip- 
tures of the Old Covenant, and who is thence called by the Jews " the 
seal of the prophets." Malachi (the angel or messenger of Jehovah), 
closes the canon of the Jewish Scriptures with words rendered doubly 
impressive by our entire ignorance of his personal history. Like the 
first prophet of the New Covenant, whose preaching is an echo of his 
warnings, he is simply "the voice of one crying in the icilderness," 
and preaching repentance from flagrant sin as the one indispensable 
preliminary to the reception of the expected Messiah. In this view 
his prophecy links the Old Covenant with the Xew ; and the connec- 
tion is made closer by his prediction of the coming of John the Bap- 
tist, as the Elijah of the new dispensation, and the forerunner of the 
An<rel-Jehovah, the messenger of the Covenant. Already was the 
Jewish Church groaning under the dissolution of the first and most 
sacred bonds of social life; and the new Elijah was needed to "turn 
the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children 
to their fathers," lest the expected Messiah should come only " to 
smite the earth with a curse." We have only to read the prophet's 
denunciation of rulers, priests, and people, to see that he is describing 
present evils, and not merely predicting some future declension. 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY 



489 







MOUNT ZION. 



These descriptions serve to fix the date of the prophecy. They agree 
so exactly with the state of things which Nehemiah found on the 
occasion of his last visit to Jerusalem, that the prophecy may be safely 
referred either to that period, or to a second declension, which soon 
followed the reforms of Nehemiah. The latter is the more probable ; 
ior had Malachi labored, as some have suggested, in conjunction with 
Nehemiah, in the same way in which Isaiah supported the reforms 
of Hezekiah, Nehemiah would surely have referred to him, as he does 
to the snares of the false prophets and to the support of Ezra, and as 
Ezra himself mentions Haggai and Zechariah. In any case, the date 
of Malachi falls before the end of this century (b. c. 400) ; and it is 
not at all impossible that Ezra, if he was really the author of the 
Scripture Canon, may have lived long enough to include in it the 
book of Malachi as well as that of Nehemiah. 

It is disappointing to confess that the question just started must be 
left without a satisfactory solution. Certain it is that we cannot im- 
plicitly follow the Jewish traditions, either about Ezra's personal his- 
tory or about his Biblical labors. Josephus, whose positive state- 
ments are too often adopted without inquiry, would have been 
generally believed when he says that Ezra died an old man, and was 
buried magnificently at Jerusalem, had he not placed his death before 
the government of Nehemiah! Another very prevalent tradition 
places his death in Persia, some even going so far as to name the 
place where he died on his return from Jerusalem to the court of 
Artaxerxes, and where his sepulchre might be seen. 



490 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The works ascribed to him by Jewish tradition were : The founda- 
tion of the "Great Synagogue"* of 120 members, the very mention 
of whose names proves the more than doubtful authenticity of the 
institution ; the establishment of Synagogues ; the authorship of the 
books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; and the collection, 
editing, and arrangement of the whole Jewish Scriptures in one 
u Canon," under the threefold division of the Law, the Prophets, and 
the Hagiographa. In performing this work, he is assumed to have 
added those passages which cannot have been written by the authors 
whose names the books bear ; such as the allusion to kings of Israel 
in Gen. xxxvi. 31 ; the account of the death and burial of Moses in 
the last chapter of Deuteronomy ; and the many references to the 
state of things "at this day." He is also said to have introduced the 
Chaldee character (in which Hebrew is still written) in place of the 
old Hebrew character which is retained in the Samaritan Pentateuch, 
and to have added the vowel points (handed down by tradition from 
Moses), the divisions of the Pesukim, or verses, and the emendations 

* According to the traditions of Rabbinic writers, a great council was appointed 
on the return of the Jews from Babylon to reorganize Hie religious life of the 
people. It consisted of 120 members, who were known as the men of the Great 
Synagogue, the successors of the prophets — themselves, in their turn, succeeded 
by scribes prominent individually as teachers. Ezra was recognized as president. 
Among the other members, in part together, in part successively, were Joshua 
the high-priest, Zerubbabel, and their companions, Daniel and the three 
"children," the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, the rulers Nehemiah and 
Mordecai. Their aim was to restore again the crown, or glory of Israel, i. e., to 
reinstate in its majesty the name of God as Great, Mighty, Terrible (Deut. vii. 
21, x. 17 ; Neh. i. 5, ix. 32 ; Jer. xxxii. 18 ; Dan. ix. 4). To this end they col- 
lected all the sacred writings of former ages and their own, and so completed the 
Canon of the Old Testament. Their work included the revision of the text, and 
this was settled by the introduction of the vowel points, which have been handed 
down to us by the Masoretic editors. They instituted the Feast of Purim. They 
organized the ritual of the synagogue. Their decrees were quoted afterward as 
those of the elders (the rtpto3v?spoi of Mark vii. 3, the ap^cuot of Matt. v. 21, 27, 
33), the Dibrt Sdpherim (= words of the scribes), which were of more authority 
than the law itself. 

Much of this is evidently uncertain. The absence of any historical mention of 
such a body, not only in the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, but in Josephus 
and Philo, has led some critics to reject the whole statement as a Rabbinic inven- 
tion, resting on no other foundation than the existence, after the exile, of a San- 
hedrim of seventy-one or seventy-two members, charged with supreme executive 
functions. The narrative of Neh. viii. 13, clearly implies the existence of a body 
of men acting as councillors under the presidency of Ezra, and these may have 
been an assembly of delegates from all provincial synagogues— a synod (to use 
the terminology of a later time) of the National Church. 



RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY. 491 

of the KerL Many of these details are the mere expressions of a 
desire, natural in those who seek for the authority of Scripture rather 
in the structure of the whole book than in the vitality of its every 
member, to place under the sanction of one great name the changes 
which must have been made on many different occasions. But the 
main question is, whether the present Canon of the Old Testament 
was, in substance, the work of Ezra. It must be remembered that 
such a work involved much more than the collection into one volume 
of books already existing in a separate form ; it included the selection 
from the whole number of those which bore, and were to bear for- 
ever, the stamp of divine authority : for no one imagines that the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament form a complete collection of the 
ancient Hebrew literature. That such a work, having such authority, 
had been completed before the Christian era, is clear from the allu- 
sions to the Holy Scriptures in the New Testament; and it was most 
probably accomplished during the Persian domination, which ended 
B. c. 323. There is every reason for its having been performed at as 
early a period as possible. Ezra's care to make the people well ac- 
quainted with the word of God is as conspicuous as his own knowl- 
edge of it. No man could be more qualified, as no time could be 
more fit, for a work which was most needful to establish the people in 
their faith. That the work must have been performed by an inspired 
man, is an axiom lying at the foundation of the whole question, un- 
less we believe, on the one hand, that the Church is endowed in every 
age with power to decide what Scriptures are canonical, or unless, on 
the other hand, we give up a canorij in the proper sense of the word, 
and reduce the authority of Scripture to that which literary criticism 
can establish for its separate books. On this ground, none but Ezra 
can be the author of the Canon ; for no one has ever thought of 
ascribing the work to Nehemiah, the civil governor and man of ac- 
tion ; and the only claim made for Malachi is the addition of his own 
prophecy to the Canon already framed by Ezra, and even this suppo- 
sition Ave have seen to be unnecessary, as Ezra may have been the 
survivor. The attempt to ascribe the work to some unknown inspired 
person later than Malachi is an example of the argumcntum ab 
ignorantid, which has no weight against the evidence of what is known. 
It is generally supposed that, in connection with the 

n r< A.(\C\ 9 • 

work of completing the Canon, Ezra composed or collected 
that wonderful series of meditations on the worth and power of the 
Word of God which are contained in the cxixth Psalm. The whole 
tenor of that Psalm is a powerful argument for the existence of a 



492 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Canon of Scripture at the time of its composition. Some also ascribe 
the first Psalm to Ezra. 

While the restored Jews were thus completing the fabric of their 
religion, the irregular worship of the Samaritans assumed the form of 
an organized schism by the erection of a rival temple on Mount 
Gerizim. The circumstances under which this happened are so ob- 
scured by Josephus with fabulous details and chronological incon- 
sistencies, that we can depend on him for little more than the exist- 
ence of such a temple, a fact of which we have ample confirmatory 
evidence. He transposes to the reign of Darius Codomannus, the last 
king of Persia, transactions which seem to have arisen out of those 
recorded in the book of Nehemiah. We have seen that the ruler's 
last act of reform was the expulsion of one of the sons of Joiada, the 
son of Eliashib, who had married a daughter of Sanballat the Horon- 
ite; and here our information from the Scripture narrative ceases. 
Xow Josephus is altogether silent about Sanballat, the great adversary 
of Nehemiah, but he gives a long account of another Sanballat, a 
governor of Samaria under Darius Codomannus, who had a daughter 
married to Manasseh, the brother of the high-priest Jaddua (grandson 
of Joiada). This Manasseh, he says, being expelled from the priest- 
hood for his marriage, fled to his father-in-law, Sanballat, and, after 
negotiations with Darius and Alexander, they erected a temple on 
Mount Gerizim. Manasseh, who became the first high-priest, was 
joined by numerous priests and Levites, who had refused to put 
away their heathen wives, and a system of worship was organized on 
Mount Gerizim resembling that of the Jewish Temple. The silence 
of Josephus about the Sanballat of Nehemiah's time, and the re- 
semblance between the banishment of his Manasseh and that of the 
son of Joiada, added to the very improbable details with which he 
has embellished his story, make the conclusion almost irresistible that 
his Manasseh was the son of Joiada, and his Sanballat the contem- 
porary of Xehemiah ; but the time of the erection of the temple on 
Gerizim may still be an open question. This much is certain, that 
such a temple was built as an assertion of the religious independence 
of the Samaritans, and that this act of schism formed the climax to 
the hostility between them and the Jews. The temple was destroyed 
by John Hyrcanus (about B. c. 109). It was to this sanctuary, as 
well as to the ancient sacrifices of the patriarchs at Shechem, that the 
Samaritan woman referred in the words — " Our fathers worshipped 
in this mountain." 



PART II. 

TV. 



The Apocryphal History. 

FROM THE RETURN OF THE JEWS FROM BABYLOX, 
TO THE DEATH OF HEROD THE GREAT. 



BOOK VII. 

CONNECTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT HISTORIES J AND 
SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS TO THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN 
OF HEROD. 

[B. C. 400—4.] 




CHAPTER XXV. 

PROM NEHEMIAH TO THE PERSECUTION OP ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANE9 

[b. c. 400-168.] 

HE interval of four centuries, from the close of the records of 
the Old Covenant to the events which heralded the birth of 
Jesus Christ, may be divided into four periods : — the continu- 
ance of the Persian dominion, till B. c. 331 ; the Greek em- 
pire in Asia, b. c. 331-167; the independence of Judaea 
under the Asmonsean princes, b. c. 167-63; and the rule of the 
house of Herod, commencing in B. c. 40, and extending beyond the 
Christian era to the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. 

T> /"I 

' ' The last two periods also include the relations of Judsea to 
Rome. There is little that possesses any great intrinsic in- 
terest, except the struggle of the Maccabees for religion and liberty 
against Antiochus Epiphanes; but the whole period demands our 
notice as a preparation for understanding the state in which we find 
the Jews at the opening of the New Testament, their moral and 
political condition, their views and opinions, their sects and parties. 

The first two of these periods — a space just equal to that from the 
death of Elizabeth to the accession of Victoria in England — form almost 

493 



494 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



a blank in the history of the Jews. They seem to have been content to 
develop their internal resources and their religious institutions under 
the mild government of Persia. "We cannot decide how far the 
princes of Judah retained an y remnant of their patriarchal authority, 
but from the time of Xehemiah the High-Priest became the most 
important person in the state; and the internal government grew 
more and more of a hierarchy. In the genealogies of the period, the 
Levites were recorded as the chief of the fathers. The high-priests 
from the time of Nehemiah to the end of the empire under Darius 

Codomannuswere Eliashib, Joiada, 



Jonathan (or Johanan), and Jad- 
dua. 

Eliashib, the high-priest in the 
time of Ezra and Xehemiah, was 
succeeded by his son Joiada, and 
he by his son Jonathan or 
Johanax (John), down to whose 
time the heads of the tribe of Levi 
were entered in the Chronicles of 
Judah, which seem therefore to 
have ended with his priesthood. 

The high-priesthood 
of Jonathan, which last- 
ed thirty-two vears, chief- 
ly in the long reign of Artaxerxes 
II., Mnemon (B. c. 405-359), was 
stained by the first of those acts of 
murderous rivalry, which afterward 
brought the state to anarchy. His 
brother, Joshua (Jesus), who was 
suspected of aiming at the high- 
priesthood by the favor of Bagoses 
the Persian satrap, was slain by 
Jonathan in the Temple. The satrap punished the murder by a tax 
of fifty shekels on every lamb offered in sacrifice, and polluted the 
Temple by his presence. But even in so doing, the Persian taught 
the Jews the much-needed lesson afterward enforced by a far higher 
authority : " Am not I purer," he said, " than the dead body of him 
whom ye have slain in the Temple ? " 

This crime forms the only memorble event in the annals of Juda?a, 
from the governnent of Nehemiah to the Macedonian conquest, if we 




b. c. 

3S2-367 



THE HIGH-PRIEST IN FULL DRESS. 



NEHEMIAH TO ANT. EPIPHANES. 



495 



except a doubtful account that the country was chastised, and a num- 
ber of Jews carried captive to Babylon, for their alleged participation 
in the revolt of the Sidonians under Artaxerxes Ochus (b. c. 351). 

Jaddua, the son and successor of Jonathan, is the last 
' 'of the high-priests mentioned in the Old Testament; and 

his is the latest name on the Old Testament, with the doubful excep- 
tion of a few in the genealogies prefixed to the Chronicles. Its inser- 
tion in the book of Nehemiah is a guide to the time when^the Canon 
of the Old Testament was 
finally closed. 

Eusebius assigns twenty 
years to the pontificate of 
Jaddua, who was high- 
priest both under Darius 
Codomannus (b. c. 336— 
331) and after the fall of 
the Persian empire. Jose- 
phus tells a romantic story 
of an interview between 
Juddua and Alexander the 
Great. While Alexander 
was besieging Tyre, he 
sent to demand the submis- 
sion of the Jews, who an- 
swered that they were the 
faithful vassals of Darius 
(b. c. 332). After taking 
Gaza, Alexander marched 
against Jerusalem. Jad- 
dua, by the command of 
God in a vision, hung the 
city with garlands, and 
went forth in solemn pro- 
cession to meet the con- 
queror at Sapha (the watch), an eminence in full sight of the city and 
the Temple. On seeing the high-priest in his state robes, the priests 
in their sacred dresses, and the people clothed in white, Alexander 
fell prostrate in adoration, and rising, embraced the high-priest. To 
the remonstrances of Parmenio he replied that he worshipped, not the 
priest, but the Name engraved upon his frontlet, and that he recog- 
nised in him a figure that had appeared to him in a vision in Mace- 




THE BREASTPLATE OF THE HIGH-PRIEST. 



496 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

donia, and bidden him to conquer Persia. Entering Jerusalem, lie 
offered sacrifice, and was shown the prophecies of Daniel relating to 
himself. He granted the Jews, not only in Judaea, but also in Media 
and Babylonia, the free enjoyment of their own laws, and exemption 
from tribute during the Sabbatic year. The story is discredited by 
the best critics on account of its internal improbabilities, approaching 
to contradictions, and the silence of the historians of Alexander. The 
statement $£ Justin, that on Alexander's advance into Syria he was 
met by many Eastern princes with their diadems, affords some con- 
firmation to the story of the high-priest's coming out to meet him in 
person. It is certain that Jerusalem and Judaea submitted to the 
conqueror, and there are traces subsequently of the privileges he is 
said to have granted to the Jews. Alexander's homage to Jehovah, 
and his pleasure at being named as the instrument of destiny, are 
points thoroughly consistent with his character. There is nothing 
improbable in his having received the submission of Judsea from the 
high-priest and princes about the time of the siege of Gaza. At all 
events, Jerusalem was too important to have been passed over by 
Alexander himself, as it is by the historians. He enlisted Jewish 
soldiers, and removed a large number of Jews to Egypt, to aid in 
peopling his new city of Alexandria. 

The Samaritans are said to have claimed the same privileges as the 
Jews, which Alexander refused to grant. Hence probably arose the 
rebellion in which they murdered the Macedonian governor, Andro- 
machus, and which Alexander punished by the destruction of Samaria. 
Palestine thenceforth remained quiet under Alexander, who died in 
b. c. 323. 

The Macedonian conqueror must not, however, be dismissed with- 
out some further notice of his real place in Jewish history, and in the 
sacred history of the world — a place not dependent on any incidental 
circumstances, such as his visit to Jerusalem. 

In the prophetic visions of Daniel the influence of Alexander is 
necessarily combined with that of his successors. They represented 
the several phases of his character; and to the Jews nationally, the 
policy of the Syrian kings was of greater importance than the original 
conquest of Asia. But some traits of "the first mighty king" are 
given with vigorous distinctness. The emblem by which he is typi- 
fied suggests the notions of strength and speed ; and the universal 
extent and marvellous rapidity of his conquests are brought forward as 
the characteristics of his power, which was directed by the strongest 
personal impetuosity. He " ruled with great dominion, and did 



NE HE MI AH TO ANT. EPIPHANES. 497 

according to his will ; and there was none that could deliver . . . out 
of his hand." 

The tradition of his visit to Jerusalem, whether true or false to fact, 
presents an aspect of Alexander's character which has been frequently 
lost sight of by his recent biographers. He was not simply a Greek, 
nor must he be judged by a Greek standard. The Orientalism, which 
was a scandal to his followers, was a necessary deduction from his 
principles, and not the result of caprice or vanity. He approached 
the idea of a universal monarchy from the side of Greece, but his final 
object was to establish something higher than the paramount supremacy 
of one people. His purpose was to combine and equalize — not to an- 
nihilate: to wed the East and West in a just union — not to enslave 
Asia to Greece. The time, indeed, was not yet come when this was 
possible ; but if he could not accomplish the great issue, he prepared 
the way for its accomplishment. 

The first and most direct consequence of the policy of Alexander 
was the weakening of nationalities, the first condition necessary for the 
dissolution of the old religions. The swift course of his victories, the 
constant incorporation of foreign elements in his armies, the fierce wars 
and changing fortunes of his successors, broke down the barriers by 
which kingdom had been separated from kingdom, and opened the 
road for larger conceptions of life and faith than had hitherto been 
possible. The contact of the East and West brought out into practical 
forms thoughts and feelings which had been confined to the schools. 
Paganism was deprived of life as soon as it was transplanted beyond 
the narrow limits in which it took its shape. The spread of commerce 
followed the progress of arms ; and the Greek language and literature 
vindicated their claim to be considered the most perfect expression of 
human thought by becoming practically universal. 

The Jews were at once most exposed to the powerful influences thus 
brought to bear upon the East, and most able to support them. In 
the arrangement of the Greek conquests, which followed the battle of 
Ipsus, B. c. 301, Judaea was made the frontier land of the rival empires 
of Syria and Egypt ; and though it was necessarily subjected to the 
constant vicissitudes of war, it was able to make advantageous terms 
with the state to which it owed allegiance, from the important advan- 
tages which it offered for attack or defence. Internally also the peo- 
ple were prepared to withstand the effects of the revolution which the 
Greek dominion effected. The constitution of Ezra had obtained its 
full development. A powerful hierarchy had succeeded in substituting 
the idea of a church for that of a state, and the Jew was now able to 
32 



498 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

wander over the world and yet remain faithful to the God of his 
fathers. The same constitutional change had strengthened the intel- 
lectual and religious position of the people. A rigid fence of ritualism 
protected the course of common life from the license of Greek manners; 
and the great doctrine of the unity of God, which was now seen to be 
the divine centre of their system, counteracted the attractions of a 
philosophic pantheism. Through a long course of discipline, in which 
they had been left unguided by prophetic teaching, the Jews had real- 
ized the nature of their mission to the world, and were waiting for the 
means of fulfilling it. The conquest of Alexander furnished them 
with the occasion and the power. But at the same time the example 
of Greece fostered personal as well as popular independence. Judaism 
was speedily divided into sects, analogous to the typical forms of Greek 
philosophy. But even the rude analysis of the old faith was productive 
of good. The freedom of Greece was no less instrumental in forming 
the Jews for their final work, than the contemplative spirit of Persia, 
or the civil organization of Rome ; for if the career of Alexander was 
rapid, its effects were lasting. The city which he chose to bear his 
name perpetuated in after ages the office which he providentially dis- 
charged for Judaism and mankind ; and the historian of Christianity 
must confirm the judgment of Arrian, that Alexander, "who was like 
no other man, could not have been given to the world without the 
special design of Providence." And Alexander himself appreciated 
this design better even than his great teacher ; for it is said that when 
Aristotle urged him to treat the Greeks as freemen and the Orientals 
as slaves, he found the true answer to this counsel in the recognition 
of his divine mission to unite and reconcile the world. 

Jaddua was succeeded, some time before the death of 
Alexander, by his son Onias I., who was high-priest from 
about b. c. 330 to b. c. 309, or, according to Eusebius, B. c. 300. In 
the division of the empire of Alexander, Palestine was treated, as it 
had always been considered by the Greeks, as a part of Syria ; and so 
it fell to the lot of Laomedon, who was dispossessed, in B. c. 321-320, 
by Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, the powerful satrap of Egypt. 
Ptolemy took Jerusalem by assaulting it on the Sabbath, when the 
Jews would offer no resistance. He carried off a large number of 
Jewish and Samaritan captives to Alexandria, where he gave them 
the full citizenship; and many others migrated to Egypt of their own 
accord. In the wars that followed, Palestine was alternately the 
prize of victory to Antigonus and Ptolemy, till the peace which 
followed the battle of Ipsus assigned it to Ptolemy, with Phoenicia 



NEHEMIAH TO ANT. EPIPHANES. 499 

and Ccelesyria, as a dependency of the kingdom of Egypt, B. c. 301. 
It was subject to the first five Ptolemies for about a century/ b. c. 
301-198. The sufferings inflicted upon Palestine and Phoenicia by 
the wars of the Diadochi (as the successors of Alexander were called 
in Greek) were almost confined to the maritime regions, where the 
strong cities, such as Gaza, Joppa, and Tyre, were the chief objects of 
contention. As in the old wars between Assyria and Egypt, Jeru- 
salem lay out of the direct track of the combatants. 

Just after the battle of Ipsus, the high-priesthood passed 
"to Simon I. the Just, son of Onias I. (about b. c. 
300-292). Jewish tradition makes him the greatest of this later line 
of priests. In the magnificent eulogy of Jesus the son of Sirach, 
Simon is said to have fortified the Temple, doubling the height of the 
wall, and to have maintained the divine service in the highest 
splendor. " When he put on the robe of honor, and was clothed 
with the perfection of glory, when he went up to the holy altar, he 
made the garment of holiness honorable/' Other traditions make 
Simon the last survivor of the Great Synagogue of 120, who returned 
with Ezra from the Babylonish Captivity, and ascribe to him the 
final completion of their great work, the Canon of the Old Testament. 
They were succeeded by the New Synagogue, whose office was to in- 
terpret the Scriptures thus completed. Its founder was Antigonus 
Socho, the first writer of the Mishna. He is said to have received 
from Simon the Just the body of oral tradition handed down from 
Moses. To him also is ascribed the doctrine, that God ought to be 
served disinterestedly, and not for the sake of reward ; which was 
perverted by one of his disciples into the denial of all future rewards 
and punishments. That disciple was Zadok (or Sadduc), founder of 
the Sadducees. But the tradition rests on insufficient evidence, and 
the etymology is extremely doubtful. 

The fondness with which Jewish tradition regarded the priesthood 
of Simon, as the best period of the restored theocracy, is indicated by 
the prodigies which were said to have heralded impending disaster at 
its close. " The sacrifices, which were always favorably accepted 
during his life, at his death became uncertain or unfavorable. The 
scape-goat, which used to be thrown from a rock, and to be dashed 
immediately to pieces, escaped (a fearful omen) into the desert. 
The great west light of the golden chandelier no longer burned with 
a steady flame — sometimes it was extinguished. The sacrificial fire 
languished ; the sacrificial bread failed, so as not to suffice, as 
formerly, for the whole priesthood." 



500 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 





SHEKEL OF THE SANCTUARY. 



B. C. 292. 



Simon the Just was succeeded by his brother Eleazar, his son 
Onias being under age (b. c. 292-251). His long rule seems to have 
been profoundly tranquil, under the mild governments 
of Ptolemy I. Soter (the son of Lagus), and Ptolemy II. 
Philadelphia, who succeeded his father in b. c. 285, and reigned 
till b. c. 247. 

To this king's literary tastes, and to the co-operation of Eleazar, 
the tradition preserved by Aristeas ascribes the Greek Version of the 
Jewish Scriptures, which is called the Septuagint, from its seventy 
or seventy-two translators. Much as there is erroneous and even 
fabulous in the tradition, there can be no doubt that the first portion 
of the translation was executed at this time by learned Jews at 
Alexandria. The work marks an important epoch in Jewish history; 
not merely the embodiment of the sacred writings in a form in which 
they might act upon the Gentile world, but, conversely, the growing 
strength of those influences which are denoted by the general name 
of Hellenism. The conquests of Alexander, and the kingdoms founded 
by his successors in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, had led to a most 
powerful infusion of Greek population, manners, literature, art, and 
religion throughout Western Asia, and Greek was rapidly becoming 
a universal language in that region. The Jews of Egypt, whose 
numbers, from the successive migrations we have noticed, were now 
very large, had doubtless become so far hellenized, that a Greek ver- 
sion of the Scriptures may have been as much needed for their use as 
for Ptolemy's curiosity. Thus it happened, in the Divine Provi- 
dence, that the growth of Oriental Hellenism prepared the way for 
the spread of Christianity, not only by imbuing half the world with a 
common civilization and a common language, but by providing in 
that language the sacred standard of divine truth, by which the 
Messiah's claims were to be established^ and the words of which he 



NEHEMIAH TO ANT. EPIPHANES. 501 

was to fulfil. But meanwhile that same Hellenism brought upon 
the Jews a new series of national trials. The Jews of Palestine 
appear to have been thus far singularly free from hellenizing ten- 
dencies; but the time soon came when their exemption was no 
longer preserved. 

After the successive rules of his uncles Eleazar and 

b c 240 

Manasseh, Onias II. at length entered on the high-priest- 
hood in b. c. 240. He endangered the long friendship with Egypt 
by neglecting to pay the annual tribute of twenty talents to Ptolemy 
III. Eitergetes, who had succeeded his father in b. c. 247. The 
high-priest's unseasonable avarice led to the first interruption of that 
kindly policy which the first three Ptolemies had uniformly preserved 
toward Judaea, and he was too indolent to obey the summons to 
answer for his conduct, under the threat of invasion. An open rup- 
ture was only averted by the policy of the high-priest's nephew, 
Joseph, the son of Tobias, who forms as great a contrast to his uncle, 
as Antipater and Herod afterward did to the imbecile Hyrcanus. 
Joseph borrowed the money for his journey from some rich Samari- 
tans, and travelled to Alexandria in the company of certain Phoeni- 
cian merchants, from whom he learned the sum they intended to bid 
for the farming of the tribute of Palestine, Phoenicia, and Ccelesyria. 
Having succeeded in appeasing Ptolemy by representing the weakness 
of Onias, Joseph offered to double the sum of 8000 talents, at which 
the merchants proposed to farm the revenues ; and, when asked for 
his sureties, named the king and queen themselves, secure in the pro- 
gress he had made in the royal favor. He obtained the contract. 
By a few severe examples, as at Ascalon and Scythopolis, he succeeded 
in discharging his office, and in establishing a civil authority side by 
side with that of the high-priest. His rule lasted for twenty-two 
years, and the power which he had set up in the state became a source 
of evils as great as the danger from which he had delivered it. 

Onias II. died in B. c. 226, and was succeeded by his 
b. c. 226. 

son Simon II. ; and four years later the crown of Egypt 

passed to Ptolemy IV. Philopator (b. c. 222-205). Meanwhile 

the rival kingdom of the Seleucidse, in Syria, had reached the climax 

of its power, and the throne had just been ascended by the most 

ambitious of its kings, Antiochus III. the Great (b. c. 223-187). 

He made war on Ptolemy for the provinces of Phoenicia, Coelesyria, 

and Palestine ; but was defeated at the battle of Raphia, near Gaza, 

b. c. 217. After this victory, Ptolemy went to Jerusalem; and, not 

content with offering sacrifices, he entered the Holy of Holies, whence 



502 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

he is said to have been driven out by a supernatural terror. He gave 
vent to his resentment by a cruel persecution of the Jews at Alexan- 
dria, the first example of such a measures for nearly 200 years. Its 
consequence was the alienation of the Jews both of Palestine and 
Egypt. 

The death of Ptolemy Philopator, when his son Ptolemy V. 
Epiphanes (b. c. 205-181) was only five years old, gave a new 
opening to the ambition of Antiochus the Great. That king, who 
had been occupied for the last twelve years in subduing a revolt in 
Asia Minor and attempting in vain to recover the provinces beyond 
the Tigris from the Parthians and Bactrians, formed a league with 
Philip V. of Macedon, for the partition of Ptolemy's dominions. 
After a fierce contest, in which Judaea suffered severely, Antiochus 
became master of Ccelesyria and Palestine (b. c. 198). The Jews, 
who had again been ill-treated by Scopas, the general of Ptolemy, 
welcomed Antiochus as a deliverer. He granted them an annual 
sum for the sacrifices, and forbade foreigners to enter the temple. 

In the same year, Simon II. was succeeded in the high- 
b c 198 

priesthood by his son Onias III. (b. c. 198-171). The 

conquered provinces were restored to Ptolemy Epiphanes as the 
dowry of his bride, Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus ; but the 
Syrian king did not give up their possession ; and he resumed them 
altogether by the treaty with Pome in B. c. 188. He lost his life in 
the following year. It is under his son and successor, Seleucus IV. 
Philopator (b. c. 187-175), that the writer of the second book of 
Maccabees places the attempt of Heliodorus to seize the treasures of 
the Temple, and his miraculous repulse. The story, of which Josephus 
knows nothing, illustrates the tendency of apocryphal writers to adorn 
their books with feeble imitations of the miracles recorded in the 
Scriptures. All we know for certain is, that Onias could scarcely 
maintain his favor with Seleucus against the machinations of Simon, 
the treasurer of the Temple, who is said to have instigated the sacri- 
lege; and the bloody feud thus commenced between the partisans of 
the high-priest and those of Simon hastened the calamities that fol- 
lowed the transfer of the supremacy to Syria. 

The accession of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes (b. c. 
B - c * • 175-164) secured the triumph of the Syrian party in 
Judaea. This prince, whose conduct, as well as his end, gained him 
the nickname of Epimanes (the madman), had been sent by his father, 
Antiochus the Great, as a hostage to Rome. He returned with a con- 
tempt for his subjects added to that love of oriental luxury which the 



NEHEMIAH TO ANT. EPIPHANES. 503 

kings of Syria had now acquired ; but his vices might have been 
chiefly dangerous to himself had not his Roman education inflamed 
the ambition which he inherited from his father. He found the Jew- 
ish high-priest at Antioch, whither Onias had gone to clear himself 
from the accusations of Simon, which were backed by the hostility of 
Apollonius, the governor of Coelesyria. The Greek party were repre- 
sented, not only by Simon, but by the high-priest's own brother, 
Joshua (Jesus), who went so far as to adopt the Greek name of Jason. 
By an enormous bribe in money and promises of annual tribute, 
Jason (b. c. 175-172) obtained the high-priesthood, while Onias III. 
was deposed, and detained at Antioch. For the first time, Greek 
customs were openly introduced into Judaea, with a success which 
shows to what an extent the Jews had already become hellenized in 
spirit. Not content with, surrendering the privileges of free worship 
obtained from former kings, and neglecting the services of the Temple, 
Jason built a gymnasium, where the Jewish youth practised the 
Greek athletic exercises, some of them even obliterating the mark of 
circumcision. Jason also sent representatives to the quinquennial 
games of the Tyrian Hercules, with large presents, which even his 
envoys scrupled to apply to the heathen sacrifices, but bestowed 
them for building ships. 

In three years, however, Jason was in his turn under- 
mined by Menelaus (b. c. 172-168), whom he had sent 
to Antioch with the tribute, and who obtained the high -priesthood by 
flattering the king's vanity and offering a higher bribe. He arrived 
at Jerusalem, " having the fury of a cruel tyrant and the rage of a 
wild beast," while Jason fled to the Ammonites. Unable to raise the 
money he had promised, Menelaus was summoned to Antioch. He 
sold some of the vessels of the Temple to the Tyrians, in order to 
bribe Andronicus, who governed Antioch during the king's absence 
in Cilicia. The deposed high-priest, Onias, who was still at Antioch, 
charged Menelaus with the sacrilege, and fled for sanctuary to the 
sacred grove of Daphne. At the instigation of Menelaus, Androni- 
cus enticed Onias from the sanctuary and put him to death (b. c. 171). 
Antiochus, who returned about this time, was moved to pity by the 
blameless character of Onias ; and, perceiving doubtless the treason- 
able schemes of Andronicus, he put the murderer to death. Mean- 
while a great tumult had broken out at Jerusalem, in consequence of 
the sacrileges committed by Lysimachus, the brother and deputy of 
Menelaus. Lysimachus was killed, and Menelaus was accused before 
Antiochus, when he reached Tyre on his way to attack Egypt ; but 



504 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Menelaus escaped through bribery, and his accusers were punished 
for the insurrection. 

We must here glance at the relations of Syria toward Egypt. 
Ptolemy VI. Philometor was an infant when he succeeded his 
father in B. c. 181 ; but the government was ably conducted by his 
mother Cleopatra, the sister of Antiochus Epiphanes. Her death 
(b. c. 173) led to a war with Syria, and Antiochus successfully con- 
ducted four campaigns against Egypt (b. c. 171—168), from which he 
only retired on the haughty mandate of the Roman ambassador, M. 
Popillius Laenas. During the second of these campaigns (b.c. 170), a 
report was spread of the king's death. Jason attacked Jerusalem at 
the head of 1000 men, and drove Menelaus into the citadel ; but, after 
great cruelties against the citizens, he was compelled to fly to the land 
of Amnion. Thence he fled to Egypt, and afterward to Sparta, where 
he sought protection on some claim of kindred, and there he " per- 
ished in a strange land." Meanwhile his attempt had the most ex- 
traordinary consequences in the history of the Jews. 

Antiochus was led to believe that Judaea had revolted, an idea no 
doubt encouraged by Manelaus, in order to get rid of his own enemies. 
The king returned from Egypt in a state of fury ; took Jerusalem by 
storm, slaying young and old, women and maidens. Forty thousand 
fell in the conflict, and as many were sold into slavery. Guided by 
Menelaus, he entered the temple, profaned the altar by the sacrifice 
of a swine, and having caused part of its flesh to be boiled, he 
sprinkled the broth over the whole sanctuary, and polluted the Holy 
of Holies with filth. He carried off the sacred vessels and other 
treasures, to the amount of 1800 talents, and returned to Antioch, 
leaving a savage Phrygian, named Philip, as his governor at Jerusa- 
lem, and Andronicus at Gerizim, where the Samaritan temple seems 
to have been profaned in like manner. Menelaus, who is stigmatized 
as the worst of all the three, is not again named in the books of 
Maccabees. His subsequent death under Antiochus Eupator was 
regarded as a judgment for his crimes (b. c. 163). 

Two years later (b. c. 168) Antiochus vented upon Judaea 
the exasperation of his dismissal from Egypt. Policy too, 
as w r ell as passion, may have urged him to destroy a province now 
thoroughly disaffected, and likely soon to fall into the power of Egypt. 
Apollonius, the old enemy of the Jews, was sent to Jerusalem at the 
head of 22,000 men, with orders to slay all the male adults, and to 
seize the women and children. Pretending that his mission was 
friendly, he waited till the Sabbath, and then fell upon the unresist- 



NEHEMIAH TO ANT. EPIPHANES. 505 

ing people. A frightful massacre took place : the city was pillaged 
and set on fire : its fortifications were dismantled : and a tower was 
erected on Mount Zion, overlooking both the temple and the city, 
from which the garrison sallied forth upon all who dared to resort to 
the deserted sanctuary. Then followed one of the severest persecu- 
tions recorded in the history of religion. Antiochus issued an edict 
for uniformity of worship throughout his dominions, and committed 
its execution in Samaria and Judsea to an old man named Athenseus, 
one of those fanatics who have been produced by heathenism, as well 
as by religions that claim a more earnest faith. A strong element of 
such fanaticism may be traced in the character of Antiochus himself. 
While his quick and versatile Greek temperament, trained in Roman 
ideas of power, and corrupted by oriental luxury, led him to indulge 
in all the vices and freaks for which despotism supplied the means — 
at one time rioting through the streets of Antioch with his boon com- 
panions, at another going through a mock canvass for the Roman 
magistracies, and pretending to hold them — he was all the while a 
munificent and bigoted supporter of the Greek worship. "The 
admirers," says Dean Milman, " of the mild genius of the Grecian 
religion, and those who suppose religious persecution unknown in the 
world to the era of Christianity, would do well to consider the wan- 
ton and barbarous attempt of Antiochus to exterminate the religion 
of the Jews and substitute that of the Greeks." 

The Samaritans submitted without resistance, and their temple on 
Mount Gerizim was dedicated to Zeus Xenius. At Jerusalem Athen- 
seus began his work by converting the sanctuary into a temple of 
Zeus Olympius. Its courts were polluted by the most licentious 
orgies ; the altar was loaded with abominable offerings ; and the old 
idolatry of Baal was re-established in the obscene form in which it had 
been carried to Greece — the phallic revels of Dionysus. The copies 
of the Book of the Law were either destroyed, or profaned by heathen 
and doubtless obscene pictures. The practice of Jewish rites, and the 
refusal to sacrifice to the Greek gods, were alike punished with death. 
Two women, who had circumcised their children, were led round the 
city with the babes hanging at their breasts, and then cast headlong from 
the wall. A company of worshippers were burned by Philip in a cave, 
to which they had fled to keep the Sabbath. The favorite test of con- 
formity was the compulsion to eat swine's flesh ; and two particular 
cases of heroic resistance make this one of the brightest pages in Jewish 
and Christian martyrology. A chief scribe, named Eleazar, a man 
of noble person and ninety years of age, when a piece of swine's flesh 



506 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

was thrust into his mouth, spat it out, and willingly offered his body 
to the torments. When some of the officers, for old acquaintance 
sake, besought him to provide some meat, and eat it as if it were the 
unclean food, he made a reply which contains the whole justification 
of the martyr's constancy to death : " It becometh not our age in any- 
wise to dissemble, wdiereby many young persons might think that 
Eleazar, being fourscore years old and ten, were now gone to a strange 
religion, and so through mine hypocrisy, and desire to live a little time, 
should be deceived by me, and I get a stain to my old age, and make 
it abominable. For though for the present time I should be delivered 
from the punishment of men, yet I should not escape the hand of the 
Almighty, neither alive, nor dead." He concluded by declaring his 
resolve, " to leave a notable example to such as be young to die 
willingly and courageously for the honorable and holy laws." His 
tempters incensed at his obstinacy, grew doubly cruel, and, as he was 
expiring beneath their blows, he cried — " It is manifest unto Jehovah, 
that hath the holy knowledge, that whereas I might have been deliv- 
ered from death, I endure sore pains in body by being beaten ; but in 
soul am well content to suffer these things, because I fear him." Thus 
was he " tortured, not accepting deliverance, that he might obtain a 
better resurrection ; " and he is included, with the other martyrs of the 
age, in the " cloud of martyrs," " of whom the world was not worthy, 
who obtained a good report through faith." Some Christian writers 
have called him " the proto-martyr of the Old Covenant," a glory, 
however, which belongs to Abel. 

" Others had trial of mockings and scourgings." Such was the fate 
of the seven brethren who, with their mother, were brought into the 
king's own presence, and, having refused to eat swine's flesh, were put 
to death with insults and torments, of which the horrid details may be 
read in the original text. From the eldest to the youngest, they dis- 
played not only constancy but triumph ; and the mother, after encour- 
aging each in his turn, herself suffered last. The atrocities committed 
at Jerusalem were rivalled in the country. But at this very crisis, 
when the worship and the people of Jehovah seemed doomed to 
extinction, a new light arose for both ; and the result showed how 
needful was the baptism of fire to purify the people from the corrup- 
tions of Hellenism. 

Meanwhile the persecutor himself became a signal example of the 
retribution which awaits despotic power and unbridled passion ; and, 
before relating the resurrection of Judaea under the Maccabees, we 
may anticipate the short period of four years, to notice the fate of 



NEHEMIAH TO ANT. EPIPHANES. 507 




CEDARS OF LEBANON. 



Antiochus Epiphanes. He was in the eastern provinces when he 
heard of the revolt of Judsea and the defeat of his general Lysias. 
Hastening back to avenge the disgrace, he attacked a temple at 
Elymais, the very place where his father had lost his life in a similar 
attempt. The mortification of being repulsed seems to have brought 
to a climax the madness which despotism usually engenders ; and he 
died in a raving frenzy at Tabse in Persia, B. c. 164. His end was 
regarded, by Greeks as well as Jews, as a judgment for his sacrile- 
gious crimes ; and he has left to history a name as odious as that of 
Nero, with whose character he had many points in common. 

It is very remarkable that this great persecution, and the subse- 
quent history of the glorious regeneration of Judaea under the Macca- 
bees, should have been passed over by the Greek and Roman 
historians. From Polybius we might have expected a just apprecia- 
tion of its importance, and an impartial summary of its facts ; but of 
this portion of his work only a few fragments remain, and the silence 
of Livy, who closely follows his history of Syria, seems to imply that 
of his great authority. Appian's meagre summary of Syrian history 
takes no notice of the Jews. Diodorus gives a very brief account of 
them, repeating the current prejudices, not as his own belief, but as 
arguments used by the counsellors of Antiochus to urge the extir- 
pation of the Jews. The contemptuous summary given by Tacitus is 
even more significant than the silence of the rest, and shows how far 
prejudice can lead even the most careful writers from the truth. He 



503 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

speaks as follows : — " During the dominion of the Assyrians, the 

Medes, and the Persians, the Jews were the most abject of their de- 
pendent subjects. After the Macedonians obtained the supremacy of 
the East, King Antiochus endeavored to do away with their super- 
stition and introduce Greek habits, but was hindered bv a Parthian 
war from reforming a most repulsive people." 

The spirit of this passage may explain the indifference of other 
authors. The uncompromising devotion of the Jews to their religion 
and their national traditions, and their claim to be worshippers of the 
only true God, excited among the heathen, and especially those who 
laid claim to philosophy, the same affected contempt and unaffected 
resentment which led Gibbon to sneer at Palestine as a country no 
larger nor more favored bv nature than Wales. Xor is it onlv this 
brilliant passage of the Jewish annals that escaped the notice and the 
sympathy of the western historians. The period of 370 years, from 
the Decree of Cyrus to the revolt of the Maccabees, embraces the 
most brilliant events of Greek and Ponian history. The aristocratic 
republics of Greece and the monarchy of Pome had reached their 
climax at its commencement, amidst the rapid growth of philosophy 
and art. Its first quarter of a century beheld the expulsion of the 
Pisistratids from Athens and the Tarquins from Pome. The strug- 
gles which placed Pome at the head of the Italian states, and formed 
her republican constitution, the Persian and Pelopomiesian wars, the 
conflict of the Greek states for the supremacy, which they at last 
yielded to the Macedonian, and the very conquest which brought 
Alexander to Judaea, are all related just as they might have been if 
there had been no such nation as the Jews. The keen inquiries of 
Herodotus, who visited Egypt and Tyre at the very time when Ezra 
and Xehemiah were regulating the restored state, produced nothing 
but the notice of Xecho's victory over Josiah and capture of Cadytis 
(probably Gaza), the mistake "that the Syrians of Palestine" learned 
circumcision from the Egyptians, and the mention of them as serving 
with the Phoenicians in the fleet of Xerxes. 

The silence of the historians of Alexander and his successors about 
the Jewish people is the more remarkable, as they have to mention 
Judaea as the scene of war ; it is matched by the Romans even when 
they come into contact with Syria and Egypt ; nor is it even broken 
when (if we may believe the historian of the Maccabees) Pome formed 
an alliance with Judas Maccabaeus. A century later, when Pompey 
penetrated into the Temple, the sacred city suggests even to Cicero 
nothing better than a nickname for his distrusted leader ; nor does Taci- 



NEHEMIAH TO ANT. EPIPHANES. 509 

tus notice the very advent of Christ with half the interest he shows in 
the relations of the Herodian princes to the Caesars. Surely we can- 
not but see in all this a divine purpose, that the outer, like the inner 
life, of the chosen people, should lie hidden from the world at large, 
and pursue a course apart from the ordinary current of warlike and 
political conflict, till from their bosom should emerge the band of 
lowly and unworldly men, who were to proclaim a " kingdom not of 
this world." 

In preparation for that event, the Jewish people had a history of 
its own, for which we could wish to possess more abundant materials. 
They had resumed the ordinances of their religion, purified from their 
old idolatries by the Captivity, and with their zeal constantly stimu- 
lated by antagonism with the Samaritans. Politically they were sub- 
ject first to Persia, and then to Egypt ; but, as long as their tribute 
was paid, their relations to their sovereign were kindly, and they 
were left to the government of their high-priests and patriarchal 
princes ; till the great Syrian persecution. The extinction of royalty, 
after it had served its purpose by giving an image of Messiah's king- 
dom, removed the chief influence Avhich had led to apostasy in Israel 
and to idolatry in Judah ; and the very dependence which debarred 
them from political freedom gave them the better opportunity for 
religious organization. The band by which the " people of God " 
were held together was at length felt to be religious and not local ; 
and all the more so from the existence of large portions of the nation 
separate from the rest, in the great Eastern " dispersion," or in the 
new community formed in Egypt. The Jews incorporated in different 
nations still looked to Jerusalem as the centre of their faith. The 
boundaries of Canaan were passed; and the beginnings of a spiritual 
dispensation were already made. Bat this process could not work 
unmixed good. " In the darkness of this long period, Judaism, with 
its stern and settled aversion to all polytheism to Gentile influences, 
gradually hardened into its rigid exclusiveness. . . . Conflicting 
opinions, which grew up under the Asmonaean princes into religious 
factions, those of the Pharisees and Sadducees, began to stir in the 
religious mind and heart of the people. The old Nazaritism grew 
toward the later Essen ism." 

The Jews restored to Palestine resumed their agricultural life on 
a land rendered doubly fertile by having " enjoyed her Sabbaths as 
long as she lay desolate, to fulfil threescore and ten years ; and it 
may be observed in passing, that the ordinance of the Sabbatic year, 
which had been so systematically neglected before the Captivity, was 



510 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



observed in the Maccabsean age. How the land was divided among 
the returned families we are not told; but thus much seems clear, 
that it soon fell chiefly into the hands of the nobles, who, becoming 
rapidly enriched through the fertility of the soil, resumed that course 
of oppression toward the poor, which the old prophets had so vehe- 
mently denounced as the crying sin of their class. An order which 
thus sets itself above the social bonds of mutual kindness is prone 
to maintain its consequence against popular discontent by foreign in- 
fluence ; and, just as the princes of Judah headed the idolatrous and 
Egyptian party in the last days of the monarchy, so now they were 
the leaders of the Syrian and hellenizing party. Their influence was 
resisted, as formerly by the prophets, so now by the priests, who 
headed the glorious uprising of the nation in defence of their religion. 
The issue of that contest proves that the nation was still sound at 
heart at the time of the Syrian domination. 



THE MACCABilAN WAR. 511 




CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE MACCAB^EAN "WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

[B. C. 168-106.] 

fHE persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes called forth a glorious 
resistance, which ended in establishing the independence of 
Judaea under the Maccabaean or Asmonaean princes. The 
interposition of Jehovah in this crisis was not, as formerly, by 
miraculous assistance, but it pleased him at this time to work 
for his people by the instrumentality of human virtues, the lofty pat- 
riotism, adventurous valor, daring and sagacious soldiership, generous 
self-devotion, and inextinguishable zeal of heroic men in 
B * ' ' the cause of their country and their God. 

In Modin, a town on an eminence commanding a view of the sea, 
the exact site of which is unknown, lived an aged priest of the line of 
Joarib, named Mattathias. He was the father of five sons in the 
prime of life, Johanan, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan. When 
Apelles, the officer of Antiochus, arrived at Modin to enforce the exe- 
cution of the royal edict against the Jewish religion, he made splendid 
offers to Mattathias, as a man of great influence, to induce him to 
submit to the king's command. The old priest not only rejected his 
advances, but publicly proclaimed his determination to live and die in 
the faith of his fathers. Other Jews were found more ready to apos- 
tatize, and one of them advanced to the altar to sacrifice to the heathen 
gods. The sight so incensed Mattathias, that he sprang upon the 
apostate and slew him upon the altar, and then turning upon the royal 
commissioner he struck him dead at his feet. 

This bold act brought matters to a crisis, and Mattathias, calling 
upon all the citizens who were zealous for the Law, to follow him, 
fled to the mountains, where he was joined by his sons, and by many 
of his countrymen. Their numbers rapidly increased, but the Syrian 
troops having surprised 1000 in a cave, attacked them on the Sabbath 
day, and meeting with no resistance, slew them without mercy. This 
led Mattathias and his followers to declare that it was lawful to engage 
in defensive warfare on the Sabbath day. 

The insurgents conducted their revolt with equal enterprise and 



512 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



discretion. For a time they lay hid in the mountain fastnesses, and, 
as opportunity occurred, poured down upon the towns ; destroyed the 
altars of the heathen gods ; circumcised children by force ; inflicted 
severe punishments upon all apostate Jews whom they captured ; re- 
covered many copies of the Law, which their enemies had wantonly 
defaced ; and re-established the synagogues for public worship, — the 
Temple being defiled and in possession of the enemy. Their ranks 

were swelled with the 
zealots for the Law, who 
were then called the Cha- 
sidim. For, immediately 
after the return from Baby- 
lonia, two sects had divid- 
ed the people: the Zadi- 
kim, the righteous, who 
observed the written Law 
of Moses ; and the more 
austere and abstemious 
Chasidim, or the holy, 
who added to the Law 
the traditions and observ- 
ances of the fathers, and 
professed a holiness 
beyond the letter of the 
covenant. From the 
former sprang the Saddu- 
cees and Karaites of later 
times ; from the latter the 
Pharisees. But the age 
of Mattathias was ill suit- 
ed to this laborious and 
enterprising w a r f a r e ; 
having bequeathed the 
command to Judas, the 
most valiant of his sons, he sank under the weight of toil and years. 
So great already was the terror of his name, that he was buried, 
without disturbance on the part of the enemy's troops, in his native 
city of Modin. 

Judas, the third and most warlike of the sons of Matta- 
thias, and hence surnamed Maccabceus (the Hammerer), is 
one of the grandest characters in Jewish history. If his youth added 




AXCIENT JEWISH SHIELDS AXD SPEARS. 



THE MACCABilAN WAR 



513 




ANCIENT SWORDS. 



vigor and enterprise to the cause,* it lost nothing in prudence and 
discretion. He had already done good service under his father, and 
was by far the best qualified leader the patriot army could have been 
given. He succeeded in collecting a force of 6000 men, and having 
tried his troops by many surprises, and night attacks, in which lie 
captured a number of cities, which he fortified and garrisoned, he 
ventured to meet the enemy in the open field. He first encountered 



* The origin of the name Maccahees is uncertain. Some assert that it was 
formed from the concluding letters of a sentence in the eleventh verse of the 
fifteenth chapter of Exodus, •* Mi Camo Ka Baalim, Jehovah," signifying, " Who 
is like unto thee among the gods, O Jehovah ? " Some, that it was the banner 
of the tribe of Dan, which contained the three last letters of the three names of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; others that it was the personal appellation of Judas, 
from a word signifying a hammer. 
33 



514 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



Apollonius, the governor of Samaria, who marched against him from 
that city. Judas routed him and captured his sword, which he ever 
afterwards wore. Seron, the deputy-governor of Ccelesyria, advanced 
to revenge the defeat of Apollonius, but was met and beaten by Judas 
in the strong pass of Beth-horon, where Joshua had defeated the Can- 
aanites centuries before. 

Antiochus was furious when he heard of these disasters to his army, 
as they occurred at a time when his extravagance had exhausted his 
treasury. His eastern provinces, Armenia and Persia, refused their 
tribute. He therefore was constrained to divide his forces, marching 
himself into the East, and leaving Lysias his general to crush the 
insurrection in Judaea. The rapid progress of Judas demanded im- 
mediate resistance. Philip, the 
Syrian governor in Jerusalem, 
sent urgent solicitations for re- 
lief. The vanguard of the Sy- 
rian army, amounting to 20,000 
men, under the command of 
Xicanor and Gorgias, advanced 
rapidly into the province ; it was 
followed by the general-in-chief 
Ptolemy Macron, their united 
forces assuming an army of 
40,000 foot and 7000 horse. A 
number of slave merchants came 
with them, Xicanor having sug- 
gested the policy of selling as 
slaves as many of the Jews as 
they could capture, in order to 
discharge the arrears of tribute due to Rome. 

Judas assembled his little band of 6000 men at the ancient sanctu- 
ary of Mizpeh ; there they fasted and prayed ; and then Judas, who 
knew that his only hope, save in his God, was in the enthusiastic zeal 
of his followers for the law of Moses, issued, in strict conformity to 
its injunctions, the appointed proclamation, that all who had married 
wives, built houses, or planted vineyards, or were fearful, should re- 
turn to their homes. His force at once melted away to 3000 badly 
armed, but devoted men. With the audacity of genius, he marched 
rapidly with this little force to Em mans, where the enemy lay en- 
cam ped, and having learned that Gorgias had been detached with 
5000 infantry and 1000 cavalry, all picked men, to gain his rear and 




LEATHER CORAS: 



THE MACCAB^EAN WAR. 



515 



attack him in the night, the enemy still supposing him to be at 
Mizpeh, he boldly resolved to storm the Syrian camp before Gorgias 
could return. His trust in Jehovah was not in vain. He communi- 
cated his resolution to his men, as they arrived on the heights over- 
looking the hostile camp at daybreak, and hurled them with terrific 
force upon the still unsuspicious foe. The Syrians made but a feeble 
resistance, and fled on all sides unto Gazara, and unto the plains of 
Idumsea, and Azotus, and Jamnia. Three thousand Syrians fell in 
the battle. The excellent discipline of the Jewish army now made 
itself conspicuous. Judas was aware that Gorgias would soon return, 
and he held his troops from the plunder of the camp until the arrival 
of that general, who came back disappointed at not finding the Jew- 
ish insurgents among 
the mountains where ,^i£ 



he had hoped to sur- 
prise them. To his 
dismay he beheld his 
own camp a blaze of 
fire, and before his 
forces had recovered 
from their astonish- 
ment, Judas and his 
men were among 
them, sword in hand. 
The contest was short 
and decisive. The 
Syrians fled without 
making a stand, and 
in their flight suffered 
immense loss. The 




BURNT 



SACRIFICE AT THE FEAST OF THE 
DEDICATION. 



rich booty of the camp fell into the hands of the Jews, " much gold 
and silver, and blue silk and purple of the sea, and great riches." 
The Jews, with just retribution, sold for slaves as many of the slave 
merchants as they could find. A due share of the spoil was given to 
the maimed, the widows, and the orphans; and the rest was divided 
among the conquerors. The next day was the Sabbath, a day indeed 
of rest and rejoicing. But this success only excited the honorable 
ambition of the Maccabee. Hearing that a great force was assembling 
beyond the Jordan, under Timotheus and Bacchides, he crossed the 
river, and gained a great victory and a considerable supply of arms. 
Here two of the chief oppressors of the Jews, Philarches and Call is- 



516 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



thenes, perished ; one in battle ; the other burnt to death in a house, 
where he had taken refuge. Nieanor fled in the disguise of a slave 
to Antioch. So closed the first triumphant campaign of the Maccabees. 
The next year an army of 60,000 infantry and 5000 
e °' cavalry, commanded by Lysias in person, appeared at Beth- 
sura, a little north of Hebron towards the southern frontier 
of Judaea. Judas attacked this force promptly with 10,000 men, and 
gained a decisive victory, inflicting a loss of 5000 killed upon the 
enemy. Thus on all sides triumphant, Judas led his heroic army 
into the ruined and desolate capital of his people — Jerusalem. They 
found the courts of the Temple overgrown with tall shrubs, and 'the 
chambers of the priests thrown down. With wild lamentations and the 
sound of martial trumpets they mingled their prayers and praises to 

the God of their fathers. The 
Syrians still held the tower on 
Mount Zion, and Judas took 
the precaution to hold them in 
check with a strong force, while 
he proceeded to install the most 
blameless of the priests in their 
office, to repair the sacred edi- 
fice, to purify every part from 
the profanation of the heathen, 
to construct a new altar, to re- 
place out of the booty all the 
sacred vessels, and at length to 
celebrate the Feast of Dedica- 
tion — a period of eight days — 
which ever after was held sac- 
red in the Jewish calendar. It was the festival of the regeneration of 
the people, which, but for the valor of the Maccabees, had almost lost 
its political existence. 

The neighboring tribes beheld with undisguised jealousy 
the reestablishment of a powerful State in Judaea. But 
Judas, having strongly fortified the Temple on the side of the citadel, 
anticipated a powerful confederacy which was forming against him, 
and carried his victorious arms into the territories of the Idumaeans 
and Ammonites. Thus discomfited on every side, the Syrians and 
their allies began to revenge themselves on the Jews who were 
scattered in Galilee and the trans-Jordanic provinces. Judas revenged 
a cruel stratagem of the inhabitants of Joppa, who decoyed 200 




COAT OF MAIL. 



b. c. 164. 



THE MACCABilAN WAR. 51T 

Jews or families on board their ships, and threw them into the sea. 
He made a descent upon the place, and burned many houses on the 
harbor, and many of their ships. In Jamnia, another treacherous 
massacre was committed, and he revenged it by burning the town, the 
flames of which were seen from Jerusalem, a distance of twenty-five 
miles. 

A great force from Tyre and Ptolemais advanced into the neigh- 
boring country. Timotheus, son of a former general of the same 
name, laid waste Gilead with great slaughter. Judas divided his 
army into three parts. He took 8000 men himself, and crossed the 
Jordan into Gilead ; sent 3000 under his brother Simon into Galilee ; 
and left the remainder, under Joseph, the son of Zacharias, and Aza- 
rias, to defend the liberated provinces, but with strict orders to 
refrain from attacking the enemy. The Maccabees, as usual, were 
irresistible. Both expeditions were successful, and future dangers 
were guarded against by removing the Galilean and trans-Jordanic 
Jews to Jerusalem. But the commanders who were left at home 
failed to obey their orders; and having undertaken an expedition 
against Jamnia, a seaport, were defeated with severe loss by Bacchides, 
the ablest of the Syrian generals. The defeat was shortly after 
revenged by the indomitable Judas ; but not without loss. When 
they proceeded, after observing the Sabbath in Adullam, to bury the 
dead, small idols were found in the clothes even of some of the priestly 
race. A sin-offering was sent to Jerusalem, not only to atone for the 
guilt of these men, but for the dead, in whose resurrection the Macca- 
bean Jews, no doubt the Chasidim, had full faith. 

About this time Antiochus Epiphanes, the great persecutor of the 
Jews, died, as has been related in the previous chapter. His young 
son, Antiochus V. Eupator (b. c. 164-162) was placed on the throne 
by Lysias ; Demetrius, the rightful heir, being a hostage in Rome. 
The first measure of Lysias was to attempt the subjugation of Judaea, 
where in Jerusalem itself the garrison of the unsurrendered fortress 
on Mount Zion, joined to a strong party of the apostate Jews, anx- 
iously awaited his approach. The royal army at once laid siege to 
Bethsura on the Idumsean frontier, not far from Hebron, which Judas 
had strongly fortified. Their force consisted; of 80,000 or 100,000 
infantry, 20,000 cavalry, and thirty-two elephants. The elephants 
seem to have excited great terror and astonishment. According to 
the Jewish annalist, each beast was escorted by 1000 infantry, 
splendidly armed, and 500 horsemen ; and each beast bore a tower 
containing thirty-two armed men. To provoke the elephants to fight, 



518 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

they showed thera the blood of grapes and mulberries. The whole 
army in radiant armor spread over the mountains and valleys, so that 
the mountains glistened therewith, and seemed like lamps of fire. 
Bethsura made a gallant defence, and Judas marched promptly to its 
relief. Wherever he fought the Israelites were successful, and his 
heroic brother, Eleazar, excited the admiration of his countrymen by 
rushing under an elephant, which he stabbed in the belly, and was 
crushed to death by its fall. The force of the enemy was overwhelm- 
ing, however, and Judas was compelled to retreat to Jerusalem. 
Bethsura, pressed *by famine (it was the Sabbatic year, the land lay 
fallow, and supplies were scarce), capitulated on honorable terms ; and 
the royal army joined the siege of that part of the capital which was 
held by Judas. Jerusalem resisted all their assaults ; the Syrians began 
to suffer from want of provisions ; and intelligence arrived that affairs 
at Antioch needed their immediate attention. The armv which 
Antiochus Epiphanes had led into Persia returned under Philip, who 
claimed the guardianship of the young king. Upon this Lysias 
advised Antiochus to make peace with the Jews. The king was no 
sooner admitted into the city, than he broke the terms just made by 
pulling down the new wall of Judas, after which he retired to Anti- 
och, and recovered the capital from Philip. His triumph was brief, 
for Demetrius, the son of Seleucus IV. — whose rightful inheritance 
had been usurped by his uncle Antiochus Epiphanes — returned from 
Rome, where he had been a hostage, overthrew and put to death 
Antiochus and Lysias, and became king by the title of Demetrius 
I. Soter (b. c. 162-150). 

The new king adopted a more dangerous policy against 
the independence of Judaea than the invasion and vast 
armies of his predecessor. The looser and less patriotic Jews* ill- 
brooked the severe government of the Chasidim, who formed the party 
of Judas. Many, perhaps, were weary of the constant warfare in 
which their valiant champion was engaged. Menelaus, the renegade 
high-priest, had accompanied the army of Lysias, and endeavored to 
form a faction in his favor ; but, on some dissatisfaction, Lysias had 
sent him to Berea, where he was thrown into a tower of ashes, and 
suffocated — a fit puni^Jiment, it was said, for one who had polluted 
the altar fires and holy ashes of God's shrine. Onias, son of the 
Onias murdered by means of Menelaus, the heir of the priesthood, 
fled to Egypt, and Alcimus, or Jacimus, was raised to the high- 
priesthood. By reviving the title of high-priest to the supreme 
authority, Demetrius hoped, if not to secure a dependent vassal in the 



> 

H 

o 




THE MACCABiEAN WAR. 519 

government of Judsea, at least to sow discord among the insurgents. 
He sent Alcimus, supported by Bacchides, his ablest general, to claim 
the sacerdotal dignity. The zealots for the Law could not resist the 
title of the high-priest. Jerusalem submitted. But no sooner had 
Alcimus got the leaders into his power than he basely murdered sixty 
of them. 

Bacchides returned to Antioch, leading the high-priest as governor ; 
while the indefatigable Judas went through the cities of Judah rally- 
ing the patriots. Alcimus again repaired to Antioch for help ; and 
Nicanor, who was sent to restore him, was defeated by Judas at 
Capharsalama. He retired to the citadel of Zion, where his refusal 
to listen to the overtures of the priests until Judas was delivered up 
to him, and his ferocious cruelties, reunited the patriots in resistance 
and prayer for his overthrow. A battle ensued at Adasa, near Beth- 
horon, where Judas gained his most glorious victory, on the 13th of 
Adar (end of February, B. c. 161), a day which was kept as a national 
festival. Nicanor was slain, and his head and hand were exposed as 
trophies at Jerusalem. The independence of Judsea was won, though 
it was not finally secured till after several years of contest, and the 
death of all the Maccabsean brothers. Meanwhile the land enjoyed a 
brief interval of rest. 

It is at this juncture that the name of Rome first ap- 
b. c. 161 ... 

pears in Jewish history. The imagination of Judas was 

captivated by the successes she had gained against the Gauls and 

Spaniards, and especially over those Greek powers with which he was 

so fiercely struggling. He had heard of their defeats of Philip, 

Perseus, and Antiochus the Great, and of their power to set up and 

cast down kings ; but he seems to have been most attracted by their 

republican form of government. He sent to Rome Eupolemus the 

son of John, wifti Jason the son of Eleazar, to propose a league 

against Syria ; and the envoys brought back a letter, inscribed on 

brazen tablets, containing the articles of alliance between the Romans 

and the Jews. But before they reached Judsea, the career of Judas 

was closed ; gloriously indeed, but in a manner which we can 

scarcely doubt that one of the old prophets would have regarded as 

a judgment for seeking strength from a heathen alliance, as the 

only error of his life. 

Demetrius had sent his whole force, under Bacchides, to 
b. c 161 

restore Alcimus and avenge Nicanor. The treaty with 

Rome seems to have offended the extreme party of the Assidseans ; 

and Judas had only 3000 men to oppose to the enemy's 20,000 foot 



THE MACCAB^AN WAR. 521 

and 2000 horse. Their camp was at"Berea" (probably Beeroth), 
and his at " Eleasa." His men, terrified by the disparity of numbers, 
continued to desert, till only 800 remained. These urged Judas to 
fly, and wait for a better opportunity. His reply shows that pro- 
phetic instinct which has often warned a hero of coming death : — 
" If our time be come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and let 
us not stain our honor ! " He took post, with his chosen warriors, 
over against the right wing of the Syrians, where Bacchides com- 
manded. He defeated this wing, the strength of the Syrian army, 
pursuing them to Azotus. But the Syrians on the left, scarcely 
meeting with opposition, fell upon the rear of the victorious Jews. 
The odds were overwhelming ; and the disaster was crowned by the 
death of Judas, whereupon his followers fled. His brothers, Jonathan 
and Simon, recovered his body, and buried him in his father's sepul- 
chre at Modin, amidst the lamentations of all Israel, as they cried, 
" How is the valiant man fallen that delivered Israel ! " As Adasa 
was the Marathon of the Jewish war of freedom, so Eleasa was its 
Thermopylge ; and, when Scripture history recovers its place in the 
literature of Christendom, the fame of Leonidas will no longer eclipse 
that of Judas Maccabseus. His best eulogy is the simple record of 
his deeds, of which his historian assures us that they were too many 
to be written. "Among those lofty spirits/' says Dean Milman, 
" who have asserted the liberty of their native land against wanton 
and cruel oppression, none have surpassed the most able of the 
Maccabees in accomplishing a great end with inadequate means ; 
none ever united more generous valor with a better cause :" none, 
we may add, more completely gave God the glory. There is at least 
one worthy tribute to his honor, in the splendid oratorio of Handel. 
His death occurred in B. c. 161. 

The triumph of Bacchides and the " impious faction " 
b c. 161. . .-...■-. 

was aided by the distress of a great famine, and the friends 

of Judas were hunted down on every side. But, as before, this want 
of moderation compelled resistance. Jonathan, surnamed Apphus 
(the wary), the fifth and youngest son of Mattathias, was chosen 
leader, as the most warlike of the three surviving brothers ; Simon 
aiding him with his counsel. They established themselves in the 
wilderness of Tokoah, where their first exploit was to avenge their 
eldest brother John (Johanan), surnamed Gaddis, who was treacher- 
ously killed by the Arabs, while conveying some of the effects of the 
patriots to the care of the Nabathseans. Incensed by this deed, Bac- 
chides, on a Sabbath, attacked their position in the marshes of the 



522 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Jordan ; but they escaped by swimming across the river, having slain 
1000 of the Syrians (b. c. 161). Bacchides now occupied himself 
with fortifying Jericho, Einmaus, Beth-horon, Bethel, and other 
strong cities in Judah, and he placed in them hostages from the chief 
families. Alcimus had set to work with equal ardor to pull down 
the walls round the Temple, when he was struck with a palsy, and 
died in great torment. Upon this, Bacchides returned to Antioch, 
and the land had rest for two years. A last attempt of the hellenizing 
party to call in the aid of Bacchides proved their ruin ; for, enraged 
by a defeat which he suffered from Jonathan, Bacchides put to death 
many of the faction who had invited him, and gave up the enterprise. 
Before lie retreated, however, he accepted the invitation of Jonathan 
to make peace; restored his prisoners and hostages; and promised 
not again to molest the Jews, a promise which he kept. Jonathan 
established himself at the fortress of Michmash, so renowned in the 
history of his great namesake, the son of Saul. There he governed 
the people, and " destroyed the ungodly men out of Israel." This 
state of things lasted for about six years (b. c. 158-153). 

The claim of Alexander Balas, a pretended son of Antio- 
' ' chus Epiphanes, to the crown of Syria, led to a new ad- 
vancement of Jonathan and the Jews (b. c. 153), who were 
courted by both rivals. Demetrius wrote first, authorizing Jonathan 
to raise an army, and commanding that the hostages in the tower of 
Zion should be delivered to him. This was at once done, and Jona- 
than began to repair the fortifications of Jerusalem. Meanwhile all of 
the hostile party fled from the fortified cities, except Bethsura. Xext 
came the letter from Alexander, nominating Jonathan to the high- 
priesthood, which had been vacant since the death of Alcimus, and 
sending him a purple robe and a crown of gold. Jonathan assumed 
these insignia at the Feast of Tabernacles (b. c. 153), and thus began 
the line of the priest-princes of the Asmonaean family. Demetrius, in 
despair, now made new and unbounded offers : freedom for all the 
Jews of his kingdom from tribute, from the duties on salt, and from 
crown-taxes ; and exemption from the payment of the third of the 
seed and the half of the produce of the fruit-trees. The three gov- 
ernments of Apherema, Lydda, and Ramathem, including the port 
of Ptolemais (Acre), were to be taken from Samaria and annexed 
to Juda?a forever, under the sole government of the high-priest. An 
army of 30,000 Jews was to be raised at the king's expense, to 
garrison the cities and act as a police. Jerusalem, with its territory, 
was declared holy, free from tithe and tribute, and a place of asylum. 



THE MACCABJEAN WAR. 523 

A large annual sum was promised for the works of the Temple and 
the fortifications of the city, and the revenues of Ptoletnais were 
assigned for the ordinary expenses of the sanctuary. All Jewish cap- 
tives throughout the Syrian euipire were to be set free, and all the 
feasts were to be holidays for them. More moderate offers might 
have been a better proof of good faith. The Jews had more confi- 
dence in Alexander, who was, moreover, favored by Rome ; and, 
after he had defeated and killed Demetrius (b. c. 150), he gave Jona- 
than a magnificent reception at Ptolemais, on his marriage with Cleo- 
patra, the daughter of Ptolemy Philometor. 

Three years later (b. c. 147), the younger Demetrius (who after- 
ward reigned as Demetrius II. Nicator), attempted to recover his 
father's kingdom ; and his adherent Apollonins, governor of Coele- 
syria, advanced to Jamnia and sent a challenge to Jonathan. A bat- 
tle was fought near Azotus, in which the infantry of Jonathan stood 
firm against the Syrian cavalry, who attacked them on all sides, till 
the fresh forces of his brother Simon routed the wearied horsemen, 
who fled to the temple of Dagon at Azotus. Jonathan burned the 
city and temple, with the men in it to the number of 8000 ; and after 
receiving the submission of Ascalon he returned to Jerusalem. 

A new enemy now took the field against Alexander, in the person 
of his father-in-law, Ptolemy, who marched into Syria, professedly 
as a friend. Jonathan met him at Joppa, and was favorably received, 
in spite of the accusations of his enemies. We need not here relate 
the alliance of Ptolemy with the young Demetrius, nor the defeat and 
death of Alexander, followed by the death of Ptolemy and the acces- 
sion of Demetrius II. Nicator to the throne of Syria (b. c. 146). 
Jonathan's political tact not only brought him safe through this revo- 
lution, but gained new advantages for his country. During the con- 
fusion, he had laid siege to the tower on Zion, for which act his 
enemies accused him to the new king, who summoned him to Ptole- 
mais. Leaving orders to press the siege, he went with a body of 
priests and elders, carrying splendid presents. He gained great favor 
with Demetrius, who confirmed him in the high-priesthood ; and a 
present of 300 talents to the king secured for Judaea most of the privi- 
leges which had been promised by Demetrius I. 

The unpopularity of Demetrius, in consequence of his disbanding 
the Syrian troops and replacing them by mercenaries whom he had 
brought with him from Crete, opened the door to the schemes of 
Trypiion, who claimed the throne for Antiochus, son of Alexander 
Balas. Jonathan seized the opportunity to obtain from Demetrius 



524 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



b. c. 144. 



a promise of the evacuation of the long-contested tower, and sent him 
a body of 3000 Jews, who saved his life in a tumult at Antioch. But 
the immediate danger was no sooner past, than Demetrius became 
estranged from Jonathan, and failed to fulfil his promises. 

The defeat of Demetrius by Tryphon placed Axtiochus 
VI. Theos on the throne (b. c. 144). Jonathan was con- 
firmed in all his honors, and his brother Simon was made captain- 
general of the country from the Ladder of Tyre to the borders of Egypt. 
Gaza and Bethsura were reduced, and Jonathan defeated the partisans of 
Demetrius near the lake Gennesareth, and again in the region of Ha- 
math, and advanced as far as Damascus ; while Simon secured Ascalon 
and took Joppa. Having renewed the alliance with Rome, and also, 
if we may trust our leading authority, with the Lacedaemonians, Jona- 
than summoned the elders to fortify the cities of Judaea, to heighten the 
walls of Jerusalem, and to block out the tower on Zion by a great 
mound from the city and the Temple. They were engaged on this 
work when Tryphon, who was plotting an usurpation, and regarded 
Jonathan as his chief obstacle, enticed him to Ptolemais, with a guard 
of only 1000 men, who were slain, and Jonathan was made prisoner. 

The enemies of the Jews now rose in every quarter; but Simon 
was acknowledged as leader, and marched to Adida to meet Tryphon, 
who was advancing to invade Judaea. When Tryphon found with 
whom he had to do, he opened negotiations. Pretending that Jona- 
than had been seized for money due to the king, he promised to 
release him on the payment of 100 talents of silver and the delivery 
of two of his sons as hostages. Simon expected treachery ; but, lest 
his motives should be mistaken, he accepted the terms. Tryphon 
verified his fears ; and, after being foiled by Simon in all his attempts 
to advance to Jerusalem and relieve the Syrian garrison, he marched 
into Gilead, still carrying Jonathan with him, and killed and buried 
him at Bascama. On his retiring to Antioch, Simon removed the 
bones of Jonathan to Modin, where he built a stately monument, 
with seven obelisks for Mattathias, his wife, and their five sons; the 
whole forming a sea-mark for passing ships. 

Simon surnamed Thassi, the second son of Mattathias, 

B C 

14 ' o- and the last of the five brethren, was high-priest from B. c. 
143 to B. c. 135. He was not the least glorious for the 
vigor and wisdom of his administration. He openly espoused the 
party of Demetrius against Tryphon, and received from that monarch 
a full recognition of the independence of his country. Instead, there- 
fore, of interfering in foreign affairs, he directed his whole attention 



THE MACCABJAN WAR 



525 




SITTING UNDER THE VINE. 



to the consolidation and internal security of the Jewish kingdom. 
He sent an embassage, which was honorably received at Rome ; he 
fortified Bethsura on the Idumsean frontier, and Joppa, the great port 
of Judaea ; reduced Gazara ; and at length broke off the last and 
heaviest link of the Syrian fetters, by taking, by the aid of famine, 
the tower of Jerusalem. He at once demolished the tower, and then, 
with incredible labor, levelled the hill on which it stood, so that it no 
longer commanded the hill of the Temple. Simon executed the law 
with great impartiality and vigor; repaired the Temple, and restored 
the sacred vessels. The wasted country began, under his prudent 
administration, to enjoy its ancient fertility. " The ancient men sat 
in all the streets, communing together of good things, and the young 
men put on glorious and warlike apparel." While his internal 
government was just and firm, he opened up a commerce with Europe 
through the port of Joppa, and renewed the treaties with Rome and 
Lacedsemon. The letters in favor of the Jews, addressed by the 
Roman Senate to the States and islands of Greece and Asia Minor, 
and to the great potentates of Asia, including even the Parthian 
Arsaces, are a striking evidence of the wide dispersion of the Jewish 
race, even in those times, and of the all commanding policy of Rome. 
In the meantime, Demetrius, the rightful sovereign of 
Syria, had been taken prisoner in an expedition against 
the Parthians. Antiochus VII. Sidetes, his brother, now levied an 
army to dispossess the usurper and murderer, Tryphon, whom he 
quickly defeated, and besieged in Dora. Simon openly espoused his 
party, but Antiochus considered Simon's assistance dearly purchased 
at the price of the independence of Palestine, and, above all, the pos- 
session of the important ports of Joppa and Gazara. Athenobius, his 
ambassador, sent to demand tribute and indemnification, was struck 



b. c. 137. 



t 
526 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

with astonishment at the riches and splendor of Simon's palace; and 
on the Jewish sovereign refusing all submission, and only offering a 
price for the possession of Joppa, Antiochus sent his general, Cende- 
beus, to invade the country, and thus began the last war which the 
Maccabees had to wage with Syria. Simon, now grown old, en- 
trusted the command of his forces to Judas and John Hyrcanus, his 
sons. They defeated Cendebeus and took Azotus, and returned to 
Jerusalem in triumph. 

But the Maccabsean race seemed destined to perish by 

b c 135 • 

violence. Ptolemy, son of Abubus, the son-in-law of 

Simon, under a secret understanding with Antiochus, king of Syria, 
formed a conspiracy to usurp the sovereignty of Judaea. At a ban- 
quet in Jericho, he contrived basely to assassinate Simon and his 
elder son ; and at the same time endeavored to surprise the younger 
son, John Hyrcanus, in Gazara; but John managed to escape, and 
went at once to Jerusalem, where he was unanimously proclaimed 
high-priest and ruler of the country. 

John Hyrcanus was the second son of Simon, under 
whom he had been commander of the army. He inherited 
the vigor and ability of his family, and was high-priest for thirty 
years (b. c. 135-106). His first act was to march against Jericho, to 
revenge the base murder of his father and brother; but Ptolemy had 
in his power the mother and brethren of Hyrcanus. He shut him- 
self up in a fortress, and exposed his captives on the walls, scourging 
them, and threatening to put them to death. The noble-minded 
woman exhorted her son, notwithstanding her own danger, to revenge 
his father's murder : but Hyrcanus hesitated ; the siege was pro- 
tracted ; and, at length, according to the improbable reason assigned 
by Joseph us, the year being a Sabbatic year, entirely raised the siege. 
Ptolemy fled to Philadelphia; of his subsequent fate we know 
nothing. The rapid movements of Hyrcanus had disconcerted the 
confederacy between the assassin and Antiochus. Still, however, the 
Syrian army overran the whole country. Hyrcanus was besieged in 
Jerusalem, where he was reduced to the last extremity by famine. 
He had been compelled to the hard measure of expelling from the 
city all those, the young and old, of both sexes, who were incapable 
of contributing to the defence. The besiegers refused to let them 
pass; and many perished miserably in the ditches and on the out- 
works. But Antiochus proved a moderate and generous enemy ; on 
the Feast of Tabernacles, he conceded a week's truce, and furnished 
the besieged with victims for sacrifice, bulls with golden horns, and 



THE MACCAB^EAN WAR. 527 

gold and silver vessels for the Temple service. He was gratefully 
»^alled Antiochus Eusebes (the pious). Finally he concluded a peace, 
of which the terms, though hard, were better than Hyrcanus, in the 
low condition to which he was reduced, could fairly expect. The 
country was to be reduced to a tributary state, and the fortifications 
of Jerusalem were to be dismantled. The king treated Hyrcanus 
with favor, and summoned him to attend him on the expedition 
which he made against Parthia, ostensibly to release his imprisoned 
brother Demetrius Nicator (b. c. 128). Hyrcanus returned before 
the defeat which lost Antiochus his throne and life. Demetrius 
escaped, and recovered the throne of Antioch. Hyrcanus seized the 
glorious opportunity of throwing off the yoke of Syria, and the 
Jewish kingdom regained its independence, which was never again 
lost until it was compelled to acknowledge the Roman dominion — 
first under the Asmonsean dynasty, then under the house of Herod. 

The Syrian monarchy being distracted by rival competitors 
1 " in- for the throne, the prudent and enterprising Hyrcanus lost 
no opportunity of extending his territory and increasing his 
power. He took Samega and Medaba, in the trans- Jordan ic region. 
But his greatest triumph, that which raised him the highest in the 
opinion of his zealous countrymen, was the capture of Sichem or Sa- 
maria, and the total destruction of the rival temple on Mount Gerizim. 
It was levelled to the earth ; not a vestige remained. The sanctuary 
on Mount Zion thus regained its pre-eminence in the Holy Land, and 
the Jews once more imposed upon the Samaritans the sacred law, 
" that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." The 
reduction of Samaria was effected by Aristobulus and Antigonus, the 
sons of John Hyrcanus, in the twenty-sixth year of his rule (b. c. 109). 
The city of Samaria was utterly destroyed, and its site converted into 
pools of water from its own abundant springs. Most of Galilee sub- 
mitted to the authority of the high-priest, who again renewed the alli- 
ance of his family with Rome. Of his buildings at Jerusalem, the 
most important was the Tower of Baris, at the northwest corner of 
the enclosure of the Temple. It was afterward the Antonia of 
Herod. 

Thus the Holy Land, under the name of Judsea, was restored to its 
ancient limits, and the people enjoyed their worship, under a race of 
priest-princes, who held their authority in submission to the divine 
law. But no human affairs ever reached the climax of prosperity 
without taking the downward turn ; and it was taken with frightful 
rapidity by the successors of John Hyrcanus, who displayed a personal 



528 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

ambition unknown to the pure patriotism of the Maccabees, and were 
soon engaged in fierce contests for supreme power. Then began those 
family murders, which form the most horrid feature of Oriental des- 
potism, and which reached their climax under Herod. One chief 
source of these evils was the rupture of the religious unity of the 
nation, by the rise of the opposing sects of the Pharisees and Sad- 
dttcees, which, springing from a doubtful origin, and from causes 
long at work, had become established during the government of John 
Hyrcanus.* Toward the end of his reign, Hyrcanus, provoked by an 
insult from one of the leading Pharisees, joined the party of the Sad- 
dupees, a step which left a heritage of trouble to his successors. " The 
cause of this rupture," says Dean Milman, " is singularly characteristic 
of Jewish manners. During a banquet, at which the chiefs of the 
ruling sect were present, Hyrcanus demanded their judgment on his 
general conduct and administration of affairs, which he professed to 
have regulated by the great principle of justice (the righteousness 
which was the watchword of the Pharisees), and by strict adherence to 
the tenets of their sect. The Pharisees, with general acclamation, tes- 
tified their approval of all his proceedings : one voice alone, that of 
Eleazar, interrupted the general harmony: — l If you are a just man, 
abandon the high-priesthood, for which you are disqualified by the 
illegitimacy of your birth.' The mother of Hyrcanus had formerly, 
it was said, though, according to Joseph us, falsely, been taken captive, 
and thus exposed to the polluting embraces of a heathen master. The 
indignant Hyrcanus demanded the trial of Eleazar for defamation. 
By the influence of the Pharisees he was shielded, and escaped with 
scourging and imprisonment. Hyrcanus, enraged at this unexpected 
hostility, listened to the representations of Jonathan, a Sadducee, who 
accused the rival faction of a conspiracy to overawe the sovereign 
power ; and from that time he entirely alienated himself from the 
Pharisaic councils." 

John Hyrcanus died exactly sixty years, or the space of 
two complete generations, after his grandfather Mattathias 
(b. c. 106). As he began a new generation of the Maccabaean house, 
so was he the first who escaped the violent end to which his father 
and uncles had succumbed. His death marks the transition from the 
theocratic commonwealth, under the Maccabaean leaders, to the Asmo- 
nsean kingdom, which was established by his son Judas or Aristobulus, 
whose Greek name is but too significant of the hellenizing character 
of the new era. 

* See Appendix to Book I., Sects of the Jews. 



THE MACCAB^EAN WAR. 529 

The only two of the first generation of the Maccabsean family, who 
did not obtain to the leadership of their countrymen like their brothers, 
yet shared their fate — Eleazar by a noble act of self-devotion, John, 
apparently the eldest brother, by treachery. The sacrifice of the family 
was complete j and probably history offers no parallel to the undaunted 
courage with which such a band dared to face death, one by one, in 
the maintenance of a holy cause. The result was worthy of the sacri- 
fice. The Maccabees inspired a subject-people with independence ; 
they found a few personal followers, and they left a nation. 

The great outlines of the Maccabsean contest, which are somewhat 
hidden in the annals thus briefly epitomized, admit of being traced 
with fair distinctness, though many points must always remain obscure, 
from our ignorance of the numbers and distribution of the Jewish 
population, and of the general condition of the people at the time. 
The disputed succession to the Syrian throne (b. c. 153) was the 
political turning-point of the struggle, which may thus be divided into 
two great periods. During the first period (b. c. 168—153) the patriots 
maintained their cause with varying success against the whole strength 
of Syria : during the second (b. c. 153-139), they were courted by rival 
factions, and their independence was acknowledged from time to time* 
though pledges given in times of danger were often broken when the 
danger was over. The paramount importance of Jerusalem is con- 
spicuous throughout the whole war. The loss of the Holy City reduced 
the patriotic party at once to the condition of mere guerilla bands, 
issuing from "the mountains " or "the wilderness," to make sudden 
forays on the neighboring -towns. This was the first aspect of the 
war; and the scene of the early exploits of Judas was the hill-country 
to the north-east of Jerusalem, from which he drove the invading 
armies at the famous battle-fields of Beth-horon and Emmaus (Nieo- 
polis). The occupation of Jerusalem closed the first act of the war 
(b. c. 166) ; and after this Judas made rapid attacks on every side — in 
Idumsea, Amnion, Gilead, Galilee — but he made no permanent settle- 
ment in the countries which he ravaged. Bethsura was fortified as a 
defence of Jerusalem on the south ; but the authority of Judas seems 
to have been limited to the immediate neighborhood of Jerusalem,, 
though the influence of his name extended more widely. On the death 
of Judas, the patriots were reduced to as great distress as at their first 
rising ; and as Bacchides held the keys of the " mountain of Ephraim," 
they were forced to find a refuge in the lowlands near Jericho, and 
after some slight successes Jonathan was allowed to settle at Michmash 
undisturbed, though the whole country remained absolutely under the 
34 



530 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

sovereignty of Syria. So far it seemed that little had been gained, 
when the contest between Alexander Balas and Demetrius I. opened a 
new period (b. c. 153). Jonathan was empowered to raise troops; the 
Jewish hostages were restored ; many of the fortresses were abandoned ; 
and apparently a definite district was assigned to the government of 
the high-priest. The former unfruitful conflicts at length produced 
their full harvest. The defeat at Eleasa, like the Swiss St. Jacob, had 
shown the worth of men who could face all odds, and no price seemed 
to© great to secure their aid. When the Jewish leaders had once ob- 
tained legitimate power, they proved able to maintain it, though their 
general success was checkered by some reverses. The solid power of 
the national party was seen by the slight effect which was produced by 
the treacherous murder of Jonathan. Simon was able at once to occupy 
his place and carry out his plans. The Syrian garrison was withdrawn 
from Jerusalem ; Joppa was occupied as a sea-port ; and " four gov- 
ernments " — probably the central parts of the old kingdom of Judah, 
with three districts taken from Samaria — were subjected to the sover- 
eign authority of the high-priest. 

The war, thus brought to a noble issue, if less famous, is not less 
glorious than any of those in which a few brave men have successfully 
maintained the cause of freedom or religion against overpowering 
might. The answer of Judas to those who counselled retreat was as 
true-hearted as that of Leonidas ; and the exploits of his followers 
will bear favorable comparison with those of the Swiss, or the Dutch, 
or the Americans. It would be easy to point out parallels in Macca- 
bsean history to the noblest traits of patriots and martyrs in other 
countries; but it may be enough here to claim for the contest the 
attention which it rarely receives. It seems, indeed, as if the indif- 
ference of classical writers were perpetuated in our own days, though 
there is no struggle — not even the wars of Joshua or David — which 
is more profoundly interesting to the Christian student. For it is not 
only in their victory over external difficulties that the heroism of the 
Maccabees is conspicuous ; their real success was as much imperilled 
by internal divisions as by foreign force. They had to contend on the 
one hand against open and subtle attempts to introduce Greek customs, 
and on the other against an extreme Pharisaic party, which is seen 
from time to time opposing their counsels. And it was from Judas 
and those whom he inspired that the old faith received its last develop- 
ment and final impress before the coming of our Lord. 

For that view of the Maccabaean war, which regards it only as a 
civil and not as a religious conflict, is essentially one-sided. If there 



THE MACCABilAJ WAR. 531 

were no other evidence than the book of Daniel — whatever opinion 
be held as to the date of it — that alone would show how deeply the 
noblest hopes of the theocracy were centered in the success of the strug- 
gle. When the feelings of the nation were thus again turned with 
fresh power to their ancient faith, we might expect that there would 
be a new creative epoch in the national literature ; or, if the form of 
Hebrew composition was already fixed by sacred types, a prophet or 
psalmist would express the thoughts of the new age after the models 
of old time. Yet in part at least the leaders of Maccabsean times felt 
that they were separated by a real chasm from the times of the king- 
dom or of the exile. If they looked for a prophet in the future, they 
acknowledged that the spirit of prophecy was not among them. The 
volume of the prophetic writings was completed, and, as far as appears, 
no one ventured to imitate its contents. But the Hagiographa, though 
they were already long fixed as a definite collection, were not equally 
far removed from imitation. The apocalyptic visions of Daniel 
served as a pattern for the visions incorporated in the book of Enoch ; 
and it has been commonly supposed that the Psalter contains compo- 
sitions of the Maccabsean date. This supposition, which is at variance 
with the best evidence which can be obtained on the history of the 
Canon, can only be received upon the clearest internal proof; and it 
may well be questioned whether the hypothesis is not as much at 
variance with sound interpretation as with the history of the Canon. 

The history of the Maccabees does not contain much which illus- 
trates in detail the religious or social progress of the Jews. It is ob- 
vious that the period must not only have intensified old beliefs, but 
also have called out elements which were latent in them. One doc- 
trine at least, that of a resurrection, and even of a material resurrec- 
tion, was brought out into the most distinct apprehension by suffering. 
" It is good to look for the hope from God, to be raised up again by 
him," was the substance of the martyr's answer to his judge; "as for 
thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life." " Our brethren," says 
another, "have fallen, having endured a short pain leading to ever- 
lasting life, being under the covenant of God." And as it was be- 
lieved that an interval elapsed between death and judgment, the dead 
were supposed to be in some measure still capable of profiting by the 
intercession of the living. Thus much is certainly expressed in the 
famous passage, 2 Mace. xii. 43-45, though the secondary notion of a 
purgatorial state is in no way implied in it. On the other hand, it is 
not very clear how far the future judgment was supposed to extend. 
If the punishment of the wicked heathen in another life had formed a 



532 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

definite article of belief, it might have been expected to be put for- 
ward more prominently, though the passages in question may be 
understood of sufferings after death, and not only of earthly sufferings; 
but for the apostate Jews there was a certain judgment in reserve. 
The firm faith in the righteous providence of God shown in the chas- 
tening of His people, as contrasted with His neglect of other nations, 
is another proof of the widening view of the spiritual world, which is 
characteristic of the epoch. The lessons of the Captivity were reduced 
to moral teaching ; and in the same way the doctrine of the ministry 
of angels assumed an importance which is without parallel except in 
patriarchal times. It was perhaps from this, cause also that the Mes- 
sianic hope was limited in its range. The vivid perception of spiritual 
truths hindered the spread of a hope which had been cherished in a 
material form ; and a pause, as it w T ere, was made, in which men 
gained new points of sight from which to contemplate the old promises. 

The various glimpses of national life which can be gained during 
the period, show on the whole a steady adherence to the Mosaic law. 
Probably the law was never more rigorously fulfilled. The impor- 
tance of the Antiochian persecution, in fixing the Canon of the Old 
Testament, deserves notice. The books of the law were specially 
sought out for destruction ; and their distinctive value was in conse- 
quence proportionately increased. To use the words of 1 Mace, "the 
holy books in our hands " were felt to make all other comfort super- 
fluous. The strict observance of the Sabbath or Sabbatical year, the 
law of the Nazarites, and the exemptions from military service, the 
solemn prayer and fasting, carry us back to early times. The provi- 
sion for the maimed, the aged, and the bereaved, was in the spirit of 
the law ; and the new feast of the dedication was a homage to the old 
rites, while it was a proof of independent life. The interruption of 
the succession to the high-priesthood was the most important innova- 
tion which was made, and one which prepared the way for the disso- 
lution of the state. After various arbitrary changes, the office was 
left vacant for seven years upon the death of Alcimus. The last de- 
scendant of Jozadak (Onias), in whose family it had been for nearly 
four centuries, fled to Egypt, and established a schismatic worship ; 
and at last, when the support of the Jews became important, the 
Maccabaean leader, Jonathan, of the family of Joarib, was elected to 
the dignity by the nomination of the Syrian king, whose will was 
confirmed, as it appears, by the voice of the people. 

Little can be said of the condition of literature and the arts which 
has not been already anticipated. In common intercourse the Jews 



THE MACCAB^EAN WAR. 533 

used the Aramaic dialect, which was established after the return : this 
was " their own language ;" but it is evident from the narrative quoted 
that they understood Greek, which must have spread widely through 
the influence of Syrian officers. There is not, however, the slightest 
evidence that Greek was employed in Palestinian literature till a much 
later date. The description of the monument which was erected by 
Simon at Modin in memory of his family, is the only record of the 
architecture of the time. The description is obscure, but in some 
features the structure appears to have presented a resemblance to the 
tombs of Porsena and the Curiatii, and perhaps to one still found in 
Idumsaa. An oblong basement, of which the two chief faces were 
built of polished white marble, supported " seven pyramids in a line 
ranged one against another," equal in number to the members of the 
Maccabsean family, including Simon himself. To these he added 
other works of art (j^av^a-ra), placing round (on the two chief faces ?) 
great columns (Josephus adds, each of a single block), bearing 
" trophies of arms, and sculptured ships, which might be visible from 
the sea below." The language of 1 Mace, and Josephus implies that 
these columns were placed upon the basement, otherwise it might be 
supposed that the columns rose only to the height of the basement 
supporting the trophies on the same level as the pyramids. So much 
at least is evident, that the characteristics of this work — and probably 
of later Jewish architecture generally — bore closer affinity to the styles 
of Asia Minor and Greece than of Egypt or the East ; a result which 
would follow equally from the Syrian dominion and the commerce 
which Simon opened by the Mediterranean. 

The only recognized relics of the time are the coins which bear the 
name of "Simon," or "Simon Prince (Nasi) of Israel," in Samaritan 
letters. The privilege of a national coinage was granted to Simon by 
Antiochus VII. Sidetes; and numerous examples occur which have 
the dates of the first, second, third, and fourth years of the liberation 
of Jerusalem (Israel, Zion) ; and it is a remarkable confirmation of 
their genuineness, that in the first year the name Zion does not occur, 
as the citadel was not recovered till the second year of Simon's 
supremacy, while after the second year Zion alone is found. The 
privilege was first definitely accorded in B. c. 140, while the first year 
of Simon was b. c. 143; but this discrepancy causes little difficulty, 
as it is not unlikely that the concession of Antiochus was made in 
favor of a practice already existing. No date is given later than the 
fourth year, but coins of Simon occur without a date, which may belong 
to the last four years of his life. The emblems which the coins bear 



534 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

have generally a connection with Jewish history — a vine-leaf, a cluster 
of grapes, a vase (of manna?), a trifid flowering rod, a palm-branch 
surrounded by a wreath of laurel, a lyre, a bundle of branches sym- 
bolic of the feast of tabernacles. The coins issued in the last war of 
independence by Barcochba repeat many of these emblems, and there 
is considerable difficulty in distinguishing the two series. The au- 
thenticity of all the Maccabsean coins was impugned by Tychsen, but 
on insufficient grounds. He was answered by Bayer, whose admira- 
ble essays give the most complete account of the coins, though he 
reckons some apparently later types as Maccabsean. Eckhel has given 
a good account of the controversy, and an accurate description of the 
chief types of the coins. 

The authorities for the Maccabsean history have been given already. 
Of modern works, that of Ewald is by far the best. Herzfeld has 
collected a mass of details, chiefly from late sources, which are inter- 
esting and sometimes valuable ; but the student of the period cannot 
but feel how difficult it is to realize it as a whole. Indeed, it seems 
that the instinct was true which named it from one chief hero. In 
this last stage of the history of Israel, as in the first, all life came from 
the leader ; and it is the greatest glory of the Maccabees that, while 
they found at first all turn upon their personal fortunes, they left a 
nation strong enough to preserve an independent faith till the typical 
kingdom gave place to a universal Church. 



THE ASMONilAN KINGDOMS. 535 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE ASMON^EAN KINGDOMS. 

[b. c. 106-37.] 

RISTOBULUS I. (b. c. 106-105), the son of Hyrcanus, suc- 
®lM ceeded his father. His reign, though brief, was long enough 
M* ■% for much crime and much misery. His mother, by the will 
<^s of Hyrcanus, claimed the sovereignty; he threw her into a 
dungeon and starved her to death. The fate of his brother 
Antigonus (the one of his brothers whom he loved) will immediately 
appear ; the other three were kept in close imprisonment. Aristo- 
bulus assumed the diadem and the title of king, and 
founded the Asmonsean monarchy, which lasted just 
seventy years ; but the whole period was one of internal dissension, 
and for nearly its latter half the interference of the Romans made the 
royalty little more than nominal. 

Soon after mounting the throne, the new king made a successful 
expedition and subdued Iturea, a district at the foot of Anti-Libanus, 
afterward called Auranitis. He returned, suffering under a danger- 
ous malady. His brother Antigonus, a short time after, having 
completed the conquest, as he entered Jerusalem, hastened, all armed 
as he was, to pay his devotions in the Temple ; to utter his thanks- 
giving prayers, it is said, for his brother's recovery. This innocent 
act was misrepresented by the queen and harem of Aristobulus as 
covering a treacherous design. Aristobulus sent to summon his 
brother to attend him unarmed. The treacherous enemies of Anti- 
gonus, instead of delivering this message, told him to wear a new and 
splendid suit of armor which he possessed, as the king wished to see it. 
The guards were posted ; and Antigonus, appearing in arms, was 
assassinated in the subterranean gallery which led from the Temple 
to the palace of Ban's. Aristobulus, seized with agonizing compunc- 
tion for his crime, vomited blood. The slave who bore the vessel 
away happened to stumble on the very spot where Antigonus had 
been slain, and the blood of the two brothers mingled on the pave- 
ment. A cry of horror rang through the palace. The king, having 
extorted from the reluctant attendants the dreadful cause, was seized 
with such an agony of remorse and horror that he expired. 



536 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



Alexander Jannmus (b. c. 105-78), the eldest surviving 
brother of Aristobulus I., secured the succession for himself. A 
feeble attempt was made by his younger brother to usurp his 
105-78 Pl ace > ^ ut the rebel was seized and put to death. Alexander 
was an enterprising rather than a successful prince; and it was, 
perhaps, fortunate for the kingdom of Judaea that the adjacent states 
were weakened by dissension and mutual hostility. Egypt was 
governed by Cleopatra, widow of Ptolemy Physcon ; Cyprus by 
Ptolemy Lathyrus, her eldest son, and most deadly enemy. The 
Syrian monarchy was shared by Antiochus Grypus and Antiochus 
Cyzicenus ; one held his court at Antioch, the other at Damascus. 
The Jews possessed the whole region of Palestine, except the noble 
port of Ptolemais ; Dora and the tower of Straton were in the hands 
of Zoilus, who owned a sort of allegiance to Syria. Gaza was like- 
wise independent of the Jewish government. The first object of 
Alexander was to reduce all these cities. He laid siege to Ptolemais, 
the inhabitants of which demanded the aid of Ptolemy Lathyrus, the 
king of Cyprus ; but after the Cyprian king had levied an army of 
30,000 men, the Ptolemaites, dreading the loss of their independence, 
refused to admit him within their gates. Ptolemy turned on the 
dominions of Zoilus, and on Gaza. Alexander entered into negotia- 
tions with Ptolemy for the friendly surrender of those places, and at 
the same time with Cleopatra for a large force to expel the king of 
Cyprus from Palestine. Ptolemy detected the double intrigue, 
marched into Judaea, took Asochis near the Jordan on the Sabbath, 
ravaged the country, and (by the assistance of an expert tactician, 
Philostephanus) totally defeated Alexander, with the loss of 30,000 
men, pursued his ravages, and, to spread the terror of his name, is 
said to have practised most abominable cruelties. The kingdom of 
Judaea was lost but for a great army of Egyptians under the command 
of Chelcias and Ananias, two Alexandrian Jews. Lathyrus retreated 
into Ccelesyria; part of Cleopatra's army pursued him, part formed 
the siege of Ptolemais. Lathyrus determined on the bold measure 
of marching into Egypt, but was repelled, and obliged to retreat to 
Gaza. Ptolemais fell ; and Alexander came to congratulate the 
Queen of Egypt on her victory. Cleopatra was strongly urged to 
seize the prince, and thus make herself mistress of Judaea; but the 
remonstrances of Ananias, the Jew, dissuaded her from this breach 
of faith. 

The Cypriote and Egyptian armies being withdrawn, Alexander 
resumed his sovereignty; but his restless disposition involved him in 




< 

< 



637 



538 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

new wars, with no better success. He invaded the country east of 
the Jordan, took Gadara, but was totally defeated before Amathus, 
which he had plundered of the treasures of Theodorus, prince of 
Philadelphia. The indefatigable prince-priest next fell upon the 
territory of Gaza, took Raphia and Anthedon, and, although con- 
strained to raise the siege of Gaza by a descent of Lath yrus, he formed 
it again the next vear. Gaza made an obstinate resistance. At one 
time the besieger came near losing his whole army by a desperate 
sally of the besieged ; at length, however, the commander of the 
garrison, Apollodotus, having been slain by treachery, Gaza surren- 
dered. Alexander at first seemed inclined to mercy, but, before long, 
let loose his troops to revenge themselves on the town. The inhabi- 
tants took up arms ; yet, after a considerable loss, the conqueror suc- 
ceeded in totally dismantling and destroying this ancient city, and 
left it a heap of ruins. 

But the most dangerous enemies of Alexander were at home. The 
Pharisaic faction had the populace at their command ; and at the 
Feast of Tabernacles, while he was officiating as king and high-priest, 
a mutiny broke out. The mob pelted him with citrons, reproached 
him with the baseness of his descent, and denied his right to the 
priesthood. The king threw his troops upon the unarmed multitude, 
and slew 6000 of them. To prevent these insults in future, Alex- 
ander raised a wooden partition between the court of the priests and 
that of the people ; and, to awe the insurgents, enrolled a bodyguard 
of foreign mercenaries, chiefly Pisidians and Cilicians. He then, a 
second time, invaded the country east of the Jordan, reduced it to 
pay tribute, took Amathus, but again suffered a total defeat by 
Orodes, king of Arabia. The Jews seized the opportunity to rise in 
rebellion, and for six years the country suffered all the horrors of 
civil war. Alexander at first met with great success ; but when he 
endeavored to bring the mutineers to terms, they cried out with one 
voice that they would yield only on one condition, that he would put 
himself to death. At length, pressed on all sides, the insurgents 
sought the aid of Demetrius Euchserns, one of the kings of Syrin. 
Alexander, always unfortunate in battle, was routed with the loss of 
all his 6000 mercenaries and many other of his troops. He fled to 
the mountains ; but a sudden revulsion of popular feeling took place 
in his favor, and he found himself at the head of 60,000 men. 
Demetrius retreated, and Alexander, master of all the country, be- 
sieged his enemies in Bethome, took the city, and marched to Jeru- 
salem in triumph. His vengeance was signal and terrible. During 



THE ASMON^EAN KINGDOMS. 



539 




TRUMPETS. 



a banquet in the midst of his concubines, he publicly crucified 800 
men, and slew their'wives and children before their faces. From 
this atrocity he was named the Thracian. Of the disaffected, 8000 
abandoned the city ; but, under his iron sway, the whole country 
remained in awed submission, though not unharassed by wars against 
the Syrians and Arabians, during the rest of his reign. His foreign 
policy at this period was equally vigorous. The kingdom of the 
Jews at his death comprehended the coast from the Tower of Straton 
to Rhinocolura, IdumaBa, Samaria, and considerable provinces to the 
east of the Jordan. In the fourth year after his triumph over the 
insurgents, Alexander Jannseus was seized with a mortal malady. A 
disturbed and rebellious kingdom, and newly conquered provinces, 
were not likely to submit to the feeble authority of women and chil- 
dren. The dying king summoned his wife Alexandra, and strongly 
urged, as the only means of preserving the kingdom, that on his 
death she should throw herself into the arms of the Pharisaic party, 
powerful on account of their numbers and turbulence, and still more 
from having the people entirely under their direction. Thus, 
after an unquiet and eventful reign of twenty-seven years, Alex- 
ander Jannseus died. 

Alexandra (b. c. 78-69), his widow, succeeded him, 
and immediately adopted the policy which lie had sug- 
gested, and threw the administration into the hands of the Pharisees. 
The change was instant, the greatest honors were paid to the remains of 



b. c. 78-69. 



540 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the unpopular Jannseus, and the high-priesthood was conferred on 
his eldest son, Hyrcanus II. 

During the whole reign of Alexandra, the wisdom, or rather the 
imperious necessity of her husband's dying admonition became more 
manifest ; the throne stood secure, the whole land, says Josephus, was 
at rest, except the Pharisees, who began to execute dreadful reprisals 
upon their former adversaries. Having strengthened their party by 
a general release of prisoners and recall of exiles, they began their 
attack on Diogenes, a favorite of the late king. Thev next demanded 
public justice on all who had been accessory to the execution of the 
800 who were crucified. Alexandra, unable to resist, was compelled 
to submit; but her second son, Aristobulus, a man of daring ambition 
and intrigue, seized the opportunity of placing himself at the head of 
the party, which, though now oppressed, was still powerful. They 
appealed to the justice as well as to the mercy of the queen, and re- 
monstrated on the ingratitude of abandoning the faithful adherents of 
her husband to the vengeance of their enemies. She adopted a measure 
intended to secure them, without offending the Pharisees ; they were 
allowed to leave Jerusalem, and were enrolled 'as the garrison of the 
frontier cities. To employ the restless mind of her son Aristobulus, 
she sent him, with a considerable army, under the pretence of checking 
the depradations of Ptolemy, who ruled a small independent kingdom 
at Chalcis, but with the secret design of seizing Damascus. Aristo- 
bulus succeeded both in the object contemplated by his mother and in 
his own ; he got possession of Damascus, and strongly attached the 
army to his person. 

The result was seen when Alexandra, after a prosperous 
reign of nine years, sickened and died. Aristobulus secretly 
fled from Jerusalem, before his mother's death, put himself at the head 
of the army, summoned all the frontier garrisons, which were composed 
of his own party, to his assistance, and upon his mother's death, 
marched rapidly upon Jerusalem, where his brother Hyrcanus II., who 
already held the high-priesthood, had been proclaimed king. The 
Pharisaic party, with Hyrcanus at their head, seized as hostages the 
wife and children of Aristobulus, and hastily raising their forces, met 
the invader at Jericho. But the affections of the army were centred 
in the bold and enterprising Aristobulus ; a great part deserted, the 
rest were discomfited ; the younger brother entered Jerusalem, the 
elder was besieged in the palace of Baris ; till at length the mild and 
indolent Hyrcanus consented to yield up the sovereignty, and retire 
perhaps to the happier station of a private man. The blow was fatal 
to the Pharisaic party. 



THE ASMON^AN KINGDOMS. 



541 








ASMON^EAN COINS. 



1. Shekel, time of Simon the Maccabee. 

2. Half Shekel, time of Simon the Maccabee. 

3. Copper Coin, time of Simon the Maccabee. 



4. Copper Coin, of Judas the Maccabee. 

5. Copper Coin, of Jonathan. 



B. c. 69-63. 



Aristobulus II. (b. c. 69-63) had scarcely achieved his victory 
over the Pharisees, when a new enemy arose in the person of Anti pater, 
whose descendants were to be more dangerous oppo- 
nents to the Asmonsean house even than the Pharisees. 
Antipater, the father of Herod, an Idumsean of noble birth, was the 
son of Antipas, who had been governor of that province under Alex- 
ander Jan naBus. Antipater had acquired considerable influence over 
the feeble mind of Hyrcanus as his chief minister, and as lie had every 
prospect of enjoying all but the name of a sovereign, he ill brooked 
the annihilation of his ambitious hopes by the conquest of Aristobulus. 
At length, after long working on the fears of Hyrcanus, as if his life 
were in danger, Antipater persuaded him to fly to Aretas, the king 
of Arabia. This kingdom had silently grown up to considerable 
power. Petra, its capital, had become the great emporium of the 
commerce through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Aretas came to 
the aid of Hyrcanus with an army of 50,000 men, defeated Aristobulus, 
and besieged him in the Temple, his last refuge, where the priests 
prepared for defence. He was vigorously pressed by Aretas, Antipa- 
ter, and Hyrcanus. During the siege two characteristic incidents took 
place. An old man named Onias had the fame of having prayed for 
rain in a season of great drought, and rain had immediately fallen ; 
and he was now brought to the camp of Hyrcanus, and commanded 



542 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

to employ his powerful prayers against Aristobulus. The patriotic 
old man knelt down, and prayed as follows : " O God, the King of 
the Universe, since on one side are thy people, on the other thy priests, 
I beseech thee hear not the prayers of either to the detriment of the 
other." For this impartial patriotism the people stoned him to death. 
The second occurrence was as follows : — The Passover drew near, and 
there were no victims in the Temple for sacrifice. The besieged 
entered into an agreement that, on payment of a certain price, lambs 
should be furnished for the great national offering. They let the 
baskets down the walls, but the perfidious besiegers took the money 
and sent up the baskets empty, or, as the Rabbins relate with the 
deepest horror, loaded with swine. 

An unexpected deliverer at length appeared ; a military 

officer of that haughty republic which had been steadily 
pursuing its way to universal dominion. Scaurus, the lieutenant of 
the Roman conqueror Pompey, had seized Damascus, and the com- 
petitors for the Jewish throne endeavored to outbid each other for his 
protection. Aristobulus offered 400 talents — Hyrcanus the same. 
The rapacious Roman hesitated ; but Aristobulus was in possession of 
the public treasures of the Temple, and therefore most likely to make 
good his terms. Scaurus sent an order to Aretas to break up the 
siege ; the Arabian complied, and as he drew off was attacked and 
defeated by the forces of Aristobulus. 

In a short time, Pompey himself arrived at Damascus. 

' Kings crowded from all sides to pay homage, and to con- 
ciliate with splendid presents the greatest subject of the Republic. 
The present of the King of Egypt was a crown of gold worth 4000 
pieces of gold ; that of Aristobulus a golden vine, worth 500 talents. 
After a short absence in Pontus and Armenia, Pompey returned to 
Syria, and the ambassadors of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus appeared 
before the tribunal of their master; the wily Antipater on the part of 
Hyrcanus — on that of Aristobulus a certain Nicodemus, who had so 
little address as to complain of the extortions of the Roman comman- 
ders, Scaurus and Gabinius. Pompey appointed a solemn hearing of 
the cause for the next spring at Damascus ; and accordingly, at that 
time, the ambassadors of Hyrcanus, of Aristobulus, and of the Jewish 
people, stood before the tribunal of the Roman. The people began 
the charge against both the brothers ; they had usurped (it was urged) 
an authority which belonged solely to the high-priests, introduced a 
kingly despotism, and reduced a free people to servitude. The am- 
bassador of Hyrcanus pleaded his superior title as the elder born ; 



THE ASMONilAN KINGDOMS. 543 

accused Aristobulus not merely of usurping the throne of his brother, 
and degrading him to a private station, but of committing wanton 
depredations by land and piracies by sea, on all the neighboring states. 
The cause of Hyrcanus was supported by more than a thousand of the 
most illustrious of the Jews, suborned by Antipater. On the part of 
Aristobulus, the total incapacity of Hyrcanus was strongly pressed ; 
his own pretensions to power were limited to that enjoyed by his 
father Alexander. On his behalf appeared a troop of insolent youths, 
splendidly arrayed in purple, with flowing hair and rich armor, who 
carried themselves as if they were the true nobles of the land. But 
Pompey had a greater object in view than the settlement of Judaea — 
the subjugation of Arabia, with the seizure of Petra and its trade. 
He dismissed both parties with great civility, particularly Aristobulus, 
who had the power of impeding his designs. Aristobulus, suspecting 
the goodness of his own cause, endeavored to put the country in a 
state of defence ; but Pompey, on his return from Arabia, began to 
assume a higher tone. He collected his forces, and marched directly 
into Judaea. He found Aristobulus shut up in a strong citadel on a 
rock, called Alexandrion. Aristobulus attempted to negotiate; twice 
he descended from his place of security to hold a conference with 
Pompey ; the third time Pompey forced him to sign written orders 
for the surrender of all his fortresses. The proud spirit of Aristobu- 
lus could not brook the disgrace of submission ; too high-minded to 
yield, too weak to resist, his conduct shows a degree of irresolution 
and vacillation which it is more just to attribute to the difficulty of 
his situation than to the want of vigor in his character. He fled to 
Jerusalem, and prepared for resistance. 

Pompey advanced to Jericho, where the Romans were 
' struck with admiration at the beautiful palm groves and 
gardens of balsam shrubs, which, originally the growth of Arabia, 
flourished in that district with great luxuriance ; their produce had 
become an important article of trade. As he approached Jerusalem, 
Aristobulus, who found the city too much divided to make effectual 
resistance, met him, and offered a large sum of money, and the sur- 
render of the capital. Gabinius was sent forward to take possession 
of the city, but the bolder party, meantime, had gained the ascendancy, 
and he found the gates closed and the walls manned. Indignant at 
this apparent treachery, Pompey threw the king into chains, and ad- 
vanced in person on Jerusalem. The party of Hyrcanus were supe- 
rior in the city, and immediately received the invader with open arms. 
The soldiery of Aristobulus threw themselves into the Temple, and, 



544 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



* w 



MiM* 



'^%^M_ 



J. o 







THE PALM GROVES OF JERICHO. 



with the priesthood, cut off all the bridges and causeways which com- 
municated with the town, and prepared for an obstinate defence. The 
hill of the Temple, precipitous on three sides, was impregnable except 
from the north. On that side Pompey made his approaches, where, 
nevertheless, there was a rapid descent, flanked by lofty towers. 
Notwithstanding the arrival of military engines from Tyre, this holy 
citadel held out for three months, and was only lost through the 
superstitious observance of the Sabbath. The Maccabsean relaxation 
of this law only provided for actual self-defence ; the Romans soon 
perceived that they might carry on their works without disturbance 
on that day. They regularly, therefore, suspended their assault, but 
employed the time in drawing the engines near the walls, filling up 
the trenches, and in other labors, which they carried on without the 
least impediment. At the end of the three months one of the batter- 
ing engines threw down the largest of the towers. Cornelius Faustus, 
a son of Sylla, mounted the breach, and after an obstinate resistance 
and great loss of life, the Romans remained masters of the Temple. 
During the assault, the priests had been employed in the daily sacri- 
fice : unmoved by the terror and confusion and carnage around, they 
calmly continued their office. Many of them were slain. Many of 



THE ASMONilAN KINGDOMS. 545 

the more zealous defenders of the Temple, threw themselves headlong 
down the precipices. 

The conduct of the Roman general excited at once the 
horror and admiration of the Jews. He entered the Tem- 
ple, surveyed every part, and even profaned with his heathen presence 
the Holy of Holies, into which the high-priest entered only once a 
year. Great was his astonishment to find this mysterious sanctuary 
entirely empty, with no statue or form or symbol of the Deity to whom 
it was consecrated. In the other parts he found immense riches — the 
golden table and candlesticks, a great store of precious frankincense, 
and two thousand talents in the treasury. All these, with generosity 
not less noble because it was politic, he left untouched — commanded 
the Temple to be purified from the carnage of his soldiers — nominated 
Hyrcanus to the priesthood, though without the royal diadem. Then 
having fixed the sum which the country was to pay as tribute to Rome, 
he demolished the walls of the city, and limited the dominions of 
Hyrcanus to Judaea. This done, he set out for Rome, carrying with 
him Aristobulus and his two sons and daughters as prisoners. 
Alexander, the elder son, made his escape on the journey, but the 
Jewish king and his second son adorned the splendid triumph of the 
conqueror. The magnanimity of Pompey, in respecting the treasures 
of the Temple, could not obliterate the deeper impression of hatred 
excited by his profanation of the sacred precincts. The Jews beheld 
with satisfaction the decline of Poinpey's fortunes, which commenced 
from this period, and attributed it entirely to his sacrilegious impiety. 
Throughout the whole world they embraced the party of Caesar, 
fortunate, inasmuch as the course they followed from blind passion 
conduced eventually to their real interests, and obtained for them 
important privileges and protection from the imperial house. 

Hyrcanus II. (b. c. 63-40) was restored to a power 
which was merely nominal ; for Judaea was really governed 
by Antipater in complete subservience to the policy of Rome. In 
fact, Judaea seems to have been annexed by Pompey to the newly- 
formed province of Syria, though under a separate administration, 
both judicial and financial. The progress of Alexander, who soon 
appeared at the head of 10,000 foot and 1500 horse, left Hyrcanus no 
choice but Roman protection. Gabinius, the proconsul of Syria, 
besieged Alexander in the fortress of Alexandrion ; but the interest 
of Alexander's mother with the Romans obtained her son an amnesty, 
on condition of his surrendering that and his other fortresses. The 
celebrated Mark Antony acted in this campaign as the lieutenant 
35 



546 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of Gabinius. The intervention of Gabinius led to a new settlement 
of the civil government. He deprived the high-priest of the supreme 
power, which he divided among five "Great Sanhedrims," seated at 
Jerusalem, Jericho, Gadara, Amanthus, and Sepphoris, and modelled 
on the Great Sanhedrim of 71 members, which had administered jus- 
tice at Jerusalem from the time of the Maccabees.* Thus the desire 
of the Jews for emancipation from the temporal power of the high- 
priest was gratified at the expense of the loss of a central seat of 
government. This state of things lasted till the restoration of Hyr- 
canus to the principality by Julius Caesar. B. c. 44. 

*The word Sanhedrim, properly Sanhedrin, is formed from owibptov: the at- 
tempts of the Rabbins to find a Hebrew etymology for it are idle. 

The Great Sanhedrim, as it is called in the Talmud, was the supreme council 
of the Jewish people in the time of Christ and earlier. In the Mishna it is also 
styled house of judgment. 

The origin of this assembly is traced in the Mishna to the seventy elders whom 
Moses was directed to associate with him in the government of the Israelites 
(Num. xi. 16, 17). This body continued to exist, according to the Rabbinical 
accounts, down to the close of the Jewish commonwealth. But it is now gener- 
ally admitted that the tribunal established by Moses was probably temporary, 
and did not continue to exist after the Israelites had entered Palestine. 

In the lack of definite historical information as to the establishment of the San- 
hedrim, it can only be said in general that the Greek etymology of the name 
seems to point to a period subsequent to the Macedonian supremacy in Palestine. 
The fact that Herod, when procurator of Galilee, was summoned before the San- 
hedrim (b. c. 47), on the ground that in putting men to death he had usurped the 
authority of the body (Joseph. Ant xiv. 9, § 4), shows that it then possessed 
much power and was not of very recent origin. If the ytpovua rCjv IovSauov, 
in 2 Mace. i. 10, iv. 44, xi. 27, designates the Sanhedrim — as it probably does — this 
is the earliest historical trace of its existence. 

In the silence of Philo, Joseph'us, and the Mishna, respecting the constitution 
of the Sanhedrim, we are obliged to depend upon the few incidental notices in 
the New Testament. From these we gather that it consisted of ap%i,tpei$, chief 
priests, or the heads of the twenty-four classes into which the priests were divided 
(including, probably, those who had been high-priests), or rtptofivtspoi, elders, 
men of age and experience, and ypau/xatFi^ scribes, lawyers, or those learned in 
the Jewish law (Matt. xx. 57, 59 ; Mark xv. 1 ; Luke xxii. 6G ; Acts v. 21). 

The number of members is usually given as 71, though other authorities make 
them 70, and others 72. The president of this body was styled Nasi, and was 
chosen on account of his eminence in worth and wisdom. Often, if not gener- 
ally, this pre-eminence was accorded to the high-priest. That the high-priest 
presided at the condemnation of Jesus (Matt. xxvi. G2), is plain from the narra- 
tive. The vice-president, called in the Talmud, father of the house of judgment, 
sat at the right hand of the president. While in session the Sanhedrim sat in the 
form of a half-circle. In Matt. xxvi. 58, Mark xiv. 54,. al., the lictors or atten- 
dants of the Sanhedrim are referred to under the name of vrtvpitai. 

The place in which the sessions of the Sanhedrim were ordinarily held was, 



THE ASMON^EAN KINGDOMS. 547 

The new settlement was but just made, when Aristobulus, having 
eseaped from Rome with his youngest son Antigonus, gathered a new 
army, and again occupied Alexandrion ; but they were speedily de- 
feated by Gabinius, and sent back to Rome, where Aristobulus re- 
mained a prisoner, but Antigonus was again released through his 
mother's intercession. When Gabinius marched with Mark Antony 
into Egypt, Alexander seized the opportunity for another revolt, and 
shut up the small Roman force, who had been left behind, in Mount 
Gerizim (b. c. 56). At the head of 80,000 men, he met Gabinius 
after his return from Egypt, but was utterly defeated near Mount 
Tabor, and only saved his life by flight. 

In B. c. 55, Crasstjs received Syria as his share in the 
partition of provinces by the first triumvirs. In the follow- 
ing year he reached Jerusalem on his disastrous expedition against the 
Parthians, who had complete power beyond the Euphrates, and had 
begun to threaten Syria. The high-priest only whetted his insatiable 
avarice by the surrender of a secret treasure ; and Crassus pillaged 
the Temple of all the wealth which was collected by the annual offer- 
ings of the faithful who were dispersed over the world, and which 

according to the Talmud, a hall called Gazzith, supposed to have been situated 
in the southeast corner of one of the courts near the Temple building. In 
special exigencies, however, it seems to have met in the residence of the high- 
priest (Matt. xxvi. 3). Forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and con- 
sequently while the Saviour was teaching in Palestine, the sessions of the San- 
hedrim w T ere removed from the hall Gazzith to a somewhat greater distance from 
the Temple building, although still on Mount Moriah. After several other 
changes, its seat was finally established at Tiberias. 

As a judicial body the Sanhedrim constituted a supreme court, to which be- 
longed, in the first instance, the trial of a tribe fallen into idolatry, false prophets, 
and the high-priest, as well as the other priests. As an administrative council, 
it determined other important matters. Jesus was arraigned before this body as 
a false prophet (John xi. 47), and Peter, John, Stephen and Paul as teachers of 
error and deceivers of the people. From Acts ix. 2, it appears that the Sanhedrim 
exercised a degree of authority beyond the limits of Palestine. According to the 
Jerusalem Gemara, the power of inflicting capital punishment was taken away 
from this tribunal forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem. With this 
agrees the answer of the Jews to Pilate (John xix. 31), "It is not lawful for us 
to put any man to death." Beyond the arrest, trial, and condemnation of one 
convicted of violating the ecclesiastical law, the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrim at 
the time could not be extended ; the confirmation and execution of the sentence 
in capital cases belonged to the Roman procurator. The stoning of Stephen 
(Acts vii. 56 sqq.) is only an apparent exception, for it was either a tumultuous 
procedure, or, if done by order of the Sanhedrim, was an illegal assumption of 
power, as Josephus (Ant xx. 0, 1) expressly declares the execution of the Apos- 
tle James during the absence of the procurator to have been. 



548 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Pompey had spared. His plunder is said to have reached the enor- 
mous amount of 10,000 talents, or more than two millions sterling: : 
and his fatal overthrow by the Parthians was viewed by the Jews as 
the punishment of one more of their oppressors, for Gabinius had 
already been driven into exile. 

On the outbreak of the Civil War, Caesar freed Aristobu- 
b c. 49. . 

lus and sent him to Judaea, but he was murdered on the 

journey by the partisans of Pompey, and his son Alexander was exe- 
cuted by Scipio at Antioch. Antigonus alone was left ; and his claims 
were superseded by the timely aid which Antipater gave Caesar in his 
Egyptian campaign (b. c. 48). His services were rewarded by the 
restoration of his puppet Hyrcanus to the sovereignty, with the title 
of Ethnarch, and by the remission of tribute in the Sabbatic year. 
Antipater was made the Procurator of all Judaea, and a Roman 
citizen ; and the aggrandizement of his family occupies the few remain- 
ing years of the Asmonaean dynasty. 

Antipater had four sons : — Phasael Herod, Joseph, and Pheroras, 
and a daughter named Salome. He made Phasael governor of Jeru- 
salem, and Herod, who was only fifteen years old, governor of Galilee. 
Herod soon distinguished himself alike by energy in his government 
and defiance of all Jewish laws and powers. He put down the ban- 
ditti by a severity in which we see the germs of his later cruelties. 
His execution of their leader roused the jealousy of the Sanhedrim, 
who cited him to answer before them for his assumption of the power 
of life and death. Confident in the popularity his success had earned, 
and bearing a menacing letter from Sextus Caesar, the governor of 
Syria, Herod appeared before the Sanhedrim in arms and royal 
purple. The only man who dared to rebuke his presumption and to 
warn the court against submission, Sameas, was one of the only two 
whose lives Herod spared when the warning was fulfilled. Hyrcanus 
adjourned the trial, and permitted Herod to escape to Damascus to 
Sextus Caesar, who made him governor of Coelesyria. It required 
all the influence of Antipater to dissuade his son from marching in 
arms upon Jerusalem. 

The death of Julius Caesar (b. c. 44) was a great blow, 
not only to the party of Hyrcanus and the family of Anti- 
pater, but to the whole Jewish nation, to whom he had granted protec- 
tion in their religion. Cassius assumed the government of Syria with 
the intolerant rapacity of a proconsul of the old school. Judaea was 
assessed at 700 talents, half to be raised by Antipater and his sons, 
and half by Malichus, a courtier of Hyrcanus. Malichus being unable 



THE ASMON^EAN KINGDOMS. 549 

to raise his portion, would have fallen a victim to the resentment of 
Cassius, had not Antipater made good the defieency from the treasures 
of Hyrcanus. Malichus acquitted the obligation by poisoning Anti- 
pater ; but Herod not long afterward procured the murder of Malichus 
in the presence of Hyrcanus, who was forced to approve the deed as 
performed by the authority of Cassius, whose favor Herod had com- 
pletely won. 

The departure of Cassius from Syria seemed to give the 
stricter Jews the opportunity of throwing off the domination 
of the Herodians, for so we may call the party since the death of 
Antipater. But Phasael put them down at Jerusalem, and Antigonus 
himself was repulsed from Galilee by Herod. Their hopes revived 
with the battle of Philippi (b. c. 42) ; and Hyrcanus placed himself at 
their head. He was won back, however, by Herod, who offered to 
marry his grand-daughter Mariamne,* and so allied himself with the 
Asmonsean family. Herod also defeated Antigonus, though supported 
by the Roman governor of Damascus ; and his presents and flattery 
secured the favor of Mark Antony, to whom the second triumvirate 
had given the dominion of the East. Antony committed the two 
governments of Palestine to Herod and his brother Phasael, under the 
title of tetrarchs, and issued various decrees in favor of Hyrcanus and 
the Jewish nation (b. c. 41). 

A last ray of hope from the East gilded the fall of the Asmonseans. 
While Antony was spending his time in dalliance with Cleopatra, 
Syria revolted, and called in the aid of the Parthians under Pacorus, 
the king's son (b. c. 40). Antigonus, the surviving son of Aristobulus, 
offered the Parthian general 1000 talents and 500 women of the 
noblest families, if he would restore him to the throne. Supported by 
a Parthian force, Antigonus marched upon Jerusalem, where the two 
♦factions came to open war, and Hyrcanus was only upheld by Herod's 
energy and severity. At length Hyrcanus and Phasael were induced, 
against the advice of Herod, to submit their cause in person to Barza- 
phernes, the Parthian commander in Syria. Herod fled to Massada, a 
strong fortress on the west side of the Dead Sea, where he placed his 
mother, his sister, and his betrothed bride, Mariamne, under the care 
of his brother Joseph and an Idumsean force, while he betook himself 

* She was the daughter of Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, and of Alexandra, 
the daughter of Hyrcanus, and so the last representative (except Antigonus and 
her brother Aristobulus) of both the surviving branches of the Asmonrean house. 
By the marriage, which took place in b. c. 37, the same year in which Antigonus 
was put to death, Herod adopted her claims as his own. 



550 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

to Rome. Foiled in the main object of securing Herod's person, the 
Parthian general threw Hyrcanus and Phasael into chains. The 
latter committed suicide in prison. The former was mutilated of his 
ears, in order to disqualify him from continuiug high-priest. He 
lived for some years longer, and was at last put to death by Herod on 
a charge of treason. 

Aktigontjb, the last ruler of the Asmonsean house, 
held a nominal sovereignty for three years (b. c. 40-37). 
The Parthians ravaged the country, and Herod soon returned in a 
new character. He had artfully advocated with the triumvirs the 
claims of young Aristobulus, the brother of Mariamne, who was the 
grandson both of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus. But his real wishes 
were doubtless well known to his former friend, Antony ; with his 
usual address he secured the favor of Octavian ; and the result was a 
decree of the Senate appointing him king of Judaea. 

All this was done at Rome in the short space of a week, and Herod 
landed at Ptolemais after an absence of onlv three months. Antigonus 
was now left to himself, his Parthian allies having retired on the 
advance of Ventidius, the legate of Antony. He was besieging Mas- 
sada, which Herod speedily relieved with the aid of a Roman force 
under Silo. The treachery of this general, whose object was to make 
all the gain he could of both parties, compelled Herod, after consider- 
able successes, to retire from before Jerusalem. Fixiug his head- 
quarters in Samaria, he employed his energies in clearing Galilee of 
robbers. 

The next year's campaign was indecisive; but, after the expul- 
sion of the Parthians from Syria, Antony placed a sufficient force 
at Herod's disposal. Having gained a great battle over Pappus, the 
general of Antigonus, Herod formed the siege of Jerusalem in the 
spring of B. c. 37 ; while he sought to recommend himself to the As- 
monsean party by completing his marriage with Mariamne. The siege 
lasted six months ; the sufferings of the besieged being increased by 
the scarcity of a Sabbatic year. The city was at length taken on a 
Sabbath ; and such was the fury of the Roman soldiery under Sosius, 
that Herod had to entreat that he might not be left king of a depopu- 
lated capital. 

Antigonus was sent in chains to Antony, who put him to death 
at Herod's instigation. The last king of the Maccabaean line 
was the first sovereign who ended his life beneath the rods and axe of 
the Roman lictor; and the Jewish historian so far sympathizes with 
Rome, as to forget the shame of his nation in contempt for the weak- 



THE ASMON^EAN KINGDOMS. 551 

ness of its last native ruler. Thus ended the Asmonsean dynasty 
(b. c. 37), in the 130th year from the first victories of Judas Macca- 
bseus, and the 70th from the assumption of the royal title by Aristo- 
bulus I. 

We shall soon see how the sole remaining scion of the long line 
of heroes, priests, and princes, the young Aristobulus, was cut off 
by Herod. 



552 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XXVIII. 

HEROD THE GREAT. 
[b. c. 37-4.] 

^HE history of the Herodian family presents one side of the last 
development of the Jewish nation. The evils already seen in 
the hierarchy which grew up after the return, found an unex- 
pected embodiment in the tyranny of a foreign usurper. 
Religion was adopted as a policy; and the hellenizing designs 
of Antiochus Epiphanes were carried out, at least in their spirit, by 
men who professed to observe the Law. Side by side with the spiri- 
tual " kingdom of God," proclaimed by John the Baptist, 
and founded by the Lord, a kingdom of the world was estab- 
lished, which in its external splendor recalled the traditional magnifi- 
cence of Solomon. The simultaneous realization of the two principles, 
national and spiritual, which had long variously influenced the Jews 
in the establishment of a dynasty and a church, is a fact pregnant 
with instruction. In the fulness of time a descendant of Esau estab- 
lished a false counterpart of the promised glories of Messiah. 

Various accounts are given of the ancestry of the Herods ; but, 
neglecting the exaggerated statements of friends and enemies, it seems # 
certain that they were of Idutnsean descent, a fact which is indicated 
by the forms of some of the names which were retained in the family. 
But though aliens by race, the Herods were Jews in faith. The Idu- 
maeans had been conquered and brought over to Judaism by John 
Hyrcanus (b. c. 130) ; and from the time of their conversion they re- 
mained constant to their new religion, looking upon Jerusalem as 
their mother city, and claiming for themselves the name of Jews. 

The general policy of the whole Herodian family, though modified 
by the personal characteristics of the successive rulers, was the same. 
It centred in the endeavor to found a great and independent kingdom, 
in which the power of Judaism should subserve the consolidation of a 
state. The protection of Rome was in the first instance a necessity ; 
but the designs of Herod I. and Agrippa I. point to an independent 
Eastern Empire as their end, and not to a mere subject monarchy. 
Such a consummation of the Jewish hopes seems to have found some 
measure of acceptance at first, and hence arose the party of the Herod- 



HEROD THE GREAT. 553 

ians ; and by a natural reaction the temporal dominion of the Herods 
opened the way to the destruction of the Jewish nationality. The 
religion which was degraded into the instrument of unscrupulous 
ambition lost its power to quicken a united people. The high-priests 
were appointed and deposed by Herod I. and his successors with such 
a reckless disregard for the character of their office, that the office 
itself was deprived of its sacred dignity. The nation was divided, 
and amid the conflicts of sects a universal faith arose, which more 
than fulfilled the nobler hopes that found no satisfaction in the 
treacherous grandeur of a court. 

Herod the Great (b. c. 37-4) was now established on the throne 
of Judaea, and founded a dynasty of princes who ruled in different 
parts of Palestine under various titles; but among whom he himself 
was the last, as he was the first, independent sovereign of the whole 
country. For he may be termed independent in reference to the 
exercise of his power, though its origin and tenure rested on the will 
of his Roman masters. By birth an Idumaean, by policy and pre- 
dilection an adherent and imitator of Rome, he seemed to many of his 
subjects little better than a heathen conqueror ; and his cruelties to the 
Asmonsean house, which was still held in reverence, roused a deep 
sense of indignation. He signalized his elevation to the throne by 
offerings to the Capitoline Jupiter, and surrounded his person with 
foreign mercenaries, some, of whom had been formerly in the service 
of Cleopatra. His coins, and those of his successors, bore only Greek 
legends, and he introduced heathen games within the walls of Jerusa- 
lem. He resolved at once to show the malcontents that they had a 
master. Massacre and confiscation were dealt out to the Asmonaean 
party. Forty-five of the chief adherents of Antigonus were put to 
death, with the whole Sanhedrim, except the rabbis Sameas and Pollio, 
who had counselled the surrender of Jerusalem during the 'siege. 
Their spoils enabled Herod to satisfy the rapacity of his patron 
Antony. The whole period of Herod's reign was, in many respects, 
a repetition of that of the Maccabees and Antiochus Epiphanes. True, 
Herod was more politic and more prudent, and also probably had 
more sympathy with the Jewish character, than Antiochus. But the 
spirit of stern resistance to innovation and of devotion to the law of 
Jehovah burned no less fiercely in the breasts of the people than it 
had done before ; and it is curious to remark how every attempt on 
Herod's part to introduce foreign customs was met by outbreaks, and 
how futile were all the benefits which he conferred both on the tem- 
poral and ecclesiastical welfare of the people when these obnoxious 



554 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




THE RACE. 



intrusions were in question. Whatever his ultimate designs might 
be, he was not yet prepared to annul the great institutions of religion ; 
nor, as a stranger of the hated race of Esau, did he venture to assume 
the robes of Aaron. He brought an obscure priest from Babylon, 
named Ananel, to fill the office of high-priest, which had been vacant 
since the mutilation of Hyrcanus. But this insult to the surviving 
members of the Asmonsean house found an able and unscrupulous 
opponent. This was Alexandra, the daughter of Hyrcanus, widow 
of Alexander the elder son of Aristobulus, and mother of Herod's 
wife Mariamne, and of young Aristobulus, whose claims we have seen 
Herod himself affecting to support at Home. Her adroit appeals to 
Cleopatra, and her unscrupulous intrigues to win over Antony, alarmed 
Herod, who, always ready to trim his policy by necessity, conferred 
the high-priesthood on Aristobulus. But the people's applause, when 
they saw the graceful youth of sixteen, the last scion of the Maccabees, 
perform his office with a dignity becoming his descent, sealed the doom 
which had doubtless already been resolved on. At a feast given by 
Alexander to Herod near Jericho, Aristobulus was drowned while 
bathing in a tank, as if accidentally, by the rough play of his com- 
rades, who were instigated by Herod. Ananel was then reappointed 
to the priesthood. 

It was in vain that the king honored his victim with a 
b c 35 . -, 

splendid funeral. The people were not deceived by his 

pretended grief; and Alexandra again appealed to Cleopatra. Herod 

was summoned to Antony at Laodicea. He resolved to face the 

danger ; but, the husband's jealousy being, perhaps, mixed with the 

desire for a sweet revenge on Alexandra in the death of her remaining 



HEROD THE GREAT. 555 

child, he left orders with his brother Joseph to dispatch Mariarane on 
the first news of his own death. Herod's gifts and personal influence 
with Antony triumphed even over the enmity of Cleopatra ; but the 
visit had fatal consequences. Herod returned, with Ccelesyria added 
to his dominions, to have his mind poisoned against his wife by the 
jealousy of his sister Salome. His fondness for Mariamne, however, 
prevailed over suspicion, till her own remonstrance with him for the 
cruel sentence, which Joseph had betrayed to her, seemed to prove 
the familiarity alleged by Salome. But her charms had not yet lost 
their power, and his rage was satiated by the execution of Joseph 
and the imprisonment of Alexandra. A new danger followed, in 
the shape of a visit of Cleopatra to Jerusalem, on her return with 
Antony from his Parthian expedition ; but Herod, after saving his 
kingdom from her cupidity, had the rarer skill to preserve himself 
from her fascinations. He is even said to have contemplated her 
murder, as the best service he could do at once to Antony and him- 
self, and to have afterward taken credit with Augustus for such a 
proof of friendship to his patron. 

In the spring of 31, the year of the battle of Actium, 
Judaea was visited by an earthquake, the effects of which 
appear to have been indeed tremendous : 10,000, or, according to 
another account, 20,000 persons were killed by the fall of buildings, 
and an immense quantity of cattle. The panic at Jerusalem was very 
severe; but it was calmed by the arguments of Herod, then departing 
to a campaign on the east of Jordan for the interests of Cleopatra, 
against Malchus, king of Arabia. This campaign, in which Herod 
won a dear-bought victory, kept him, whether by good fortune or 
design, from following Antony to Actium. He went to meet the 
conqueror at Rhodes, having first put an end to all rivalry from the 
Asmonaean house by the execution of the aged Hyrcanus on a charge 
of treason (b. c. 30). He intrusted the government to his brother 
Pheroras, and provided for the safety of his family in the fortress of 
Massada. Mariamne and her mother were placed in Alexandrion, 
under the care of his steward Joseph and an Ituraean named Soemus, 
with the same secret instructions as before. Herod had not mis- 
calculated his personal influence over the young Octavian. Instead 
of apologizing for his faithful adherence to Antony, he urged it as a 
proof of the constancy which the conqueror might expect. He 
returned to Judaea, invested anew with the diadem, and honored 
with marks of personal favor. He shortly after met Octavian on his 
way to Egypt at Ptolemais, and secured his favor by a magnificent 



556 HISTORY OP THE BIBLE. 

entertainment, by providing for all the wants "of the Roman army, 
and by a present of 800 talents. 

When the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra was con- 
summated, and Egypt reduced to a Roman province, Octa- 
vian restored to Herod those parts of Palestine which Antony had 
presented to Cleopatra, as well as the fortresses and maritime towns, 
which had long been the objects of dispute, as Gadara, Samaria, 
Joppa, Gaza, and the Tower of Straton, soon to become the princely 
city of Csesarea. Herod was now master of a kingdom which in- 
cluded all the land originally divided among the twelve tribes, 
together with Idumsea. Exclusive of the latter country, the whole 
was divided into four districts, a clear conception of which is needful 
for understanding the topography of our Lord's ministry : — I. Judaea ; 
extending from the confines of Egypt and the southern desert to a 
line drawn from Joppa, not far different from the 32d parallel of 
latitude. II. Samaria ; whose north boundary ran along the hills 
south of the plain of Esdraelon, meeting the sea south of Dora. III. 
Galilee, Lower and Upper; extending northward as far as the 
parallel of Mount Hermon ; but shut out from the sea by the narrow 
strip of Phcenice, which reached south of Carmel and even of Dora. 
IV. Peilea, the name of the whole region east of Jordan and the 
Dead Sea as far south as the Arnon, which was again subdivided into 
— (1) Percea, in the narrower sense, between the Arnon and the 
Jabbok : (2) Galaaditis, the old land of Gilead, partly overlapping 
the former : (3) Batancea, (4) Gaulonitis, and (5) Iturcm or Auranitis, 
embracing together the ancient country of Bashan: (6) Trachonitis, in 
the wild rocky desert of the Hauran. (7) Abilene, among the eastern 
foot-hills of the Antilibanus, lay beyond the proper limits of the 
country. Lastly, (8) Decapolis, a name at first given to Ten Cities in 
the north, which were rebuilt and endowed with certain privileges at 
the time of the first Roman occupation (b. c. 65), became the designa- 
tion of a large district on both sides the lake of Galilee. 

This fair kingdom had been won (we have seen in what 

b c 29 . . 

way) by a man of ability, magnificence, and taste ; but ut- 
terly regardless of his people's most cherished feelings, and insensible 
to the high destiny of the " Holy Nation/' the " peculiar possession 
of Jehovah." This idea has been for some time so steadily fading, 
that the sacred name has almost disappeared from our pages ; but it 
was reserved for the Idumaean usurper at once to reunite the nation, 
and to heathenize its government, and so to prove the need, whili 
smoothing the way, for the advent of the Christ. Meanwhile Herod 3 



HEROD THE GREAT. 557 

prosperity was poisoned by unparalleled domestic tragedies. Alexan- 
dra and Mariamne had again won from Soemus the secret of Herod's 
fatal orders, and this time the wife's indignation and the renewed 
accusations of Salome were too strong for Herod's fondness. Con- 
vinced at length that guilty love was the price of his betrayed secret, 
Herod doomed Mariamne to death ; and her last moments were 
insulted by the reproaches with which her mother purchased a brief 
respite for herself. The proud and beautiful queen died with the 
courage of innocence, leaving Herod the victim of a remorse which 
never ceased. In its first transports he retired into solitude, and fell 
dangerously ill. Alexandra now thought the time was come to con- 
summate her intrigues and revenge; but her plot for seizing the 
Tower of Baris was betrayed to Herod, and she was led to the fate 
w T hich her daughter had so lately suffered. Her death removed 
Herod's last fears from the Asmonseans ; but his illness seems to have 
given the last permanent tinge of morose cruelty to his stern temper. 
Among many distinguished victims to the charge of an Asmonsean 
conspiracy was Costabaras, an Idumsean, the former husband of Sa- 
lome, who had divorced him in direct violation of the law. 

Herod's public administration was directed to the increase of his 
own royal state, and the gratification of his imperial master. But he 
probably acted also from the more subtle policy of "counterbalancing 
by a strong Grecian party the turbulent and exclusive spirit of the 
Jews." The Jews, who had so nobly resisted the attempt to persecute 
them into Hellenism, were now invited to adopt both Greek and 
Roman customs. The holy hill, to which David had carried up the 
ark of God, looked down upon a theatre and amphitheatre, in which 
Herod held games in honor of Augustus, with musical and dramatic 
contests, horse and chariot races, and the bloody fights of gladiators 
and wild beasts, while Jewish athletes took part in gymnastic contests. 
The sullen submission of the people was only overtaxed by the sight 
of the trophies hung round the theatre ; but when Herod had them 
opened to show that they contained no idols, indignation gave way 
to ridicule. A few, however, viewed these proceedings with far 
sterner feelings. Ten zealots bound themselves by a vow to kill 
Herod in the theatre ; but they were discovered and put to death, 
enduring the most cruel torments with the constancy of the Macca- 
baean martyrs. 

At this time Herod occupied the old palace of the 
b. c. 26-24. . 

Asmonseans, which crowned the eastern face of the upper 

city, and stood adjoining the Xystus at the end of the bridge which 



553 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



formed the communication between the south part of the Temple and 
the upper city. This palace was not yet so magnificent as he after- 
ward made it, but it was already most richly furnished. Herod had 
now also completed the improvements of the Baris — the fortress built 
by John Hyrcanus on the foundations of Simon Maccabaeus — which 
he had enlarged and strengthened at great expense, and named 
Antonia — after his friend Mark Antony. This celebrated fortress 
formed an intimate part of the Temple, as reconstructed by Herod. 
It stood at the west end of the north wall of the Temple, and was in- 
accessible on all sides but that. He provided a refuge, in case of need, 
from the hostility of Jerusalem, in the two fortresses of Gaba in Gali- 
lee and Heshbon in Perasa. A similar feeling was displayed in his 
restoration of Samaria, which he called Sebaste, in honor of Augustus, 
and peopled with his veteran soldiers mingled with descendants of 
the old Samaritans. But his greatest undertaking in this sort was the 
erection of a new maritime city on the site of the Tower of Straton. 
An exposed anchorage was converted into a safe harbor by a mole 
200 feet wide, constructed of immense stones and fortified with towers. 
The city, magnificently built in the Graeco-Roman style of architecture, 
rose in the form of an amphitheatre from the quays that lined the 
harbor* Among its public buildings were a theatre and amphitheatre ; 
and in its centre stood a temple dedicated to Augustus, with two colossal 
statues, one of Rome, and the other of the Emperor, in whose honor 
the city was called C^sarea. That all might be in keeping, it was 
peopled chiefly by Greeks. Its erection occupied twelve years. De- 
signed probably for Herod's new capital, whenever he might feel it 
safe to throw off the last shred of Judaism, it became before long the 
seat of Roman government. Meanwhile its maritime position brought 
Judasa into closer contact than ever with the Roman world. Its 
ruins, which still bear the imperial name, Kaisarieh, have no other 
inhabitants than wild beasts, serpents, lizards, and scorpions. Herod's 
leaning to the religion of Rome was further shown by his erecting a 
temple of white marble, dedicated to Augustus, at the chief source of 
the Jordan, which had already acquired the heathen name of Panium 
(the Cave of Pan). Around this temple his son Philip afterward built 
the city of Ccesarca Philippic in honor of Tiberius. 

Herod's sons by Mariamne, Aristobulus and Alexander, 
were sent to be educated at Rome ; and he lost no opportu- 
nity of waiting upon Augustus, whether in his wars or his peaceful 
progresses. At the same time he maintained the closest friendship 
with the great minister Agrippa, so that " Caesar was said to assign 



b. c. 24. 



HEROD THE GREAT. 559 

Herod the next place in his favor to Agrippa ; Agrippa to esteem 
Herod higher than any of his friends, except Augustus." This inti- 
macy was the cause of the introduction into the family of Herod's son, 
Aristobulus, of the name of Agrippa, which appears in the Acts of 
the Apostles. He courted the people of Greece by magnificent dona- 
tions to the temple at Olympia, and was made perpetual president of 
the Olympic games — a strange mutation for both Jews and Greeks, 
that a half-heathen king of Judasa should be the recognized head of 
the Hellenic race. 

Herod's subjects were not without some compensation for all these 
insults to their national traditions. True, he put down every show 
of opposition with relentless severity. His perpetual fears of the 
Pharisees and Essenes prompted him to require of them an oath of 
allegiance, and he knew how to revenge himself for their obstinate 
refusal. His espionage was always vigilant, and many murmurers 
disappeared forever in the prison of Hyrcania, which has been called 
Herod's Bastile. But he displayed a princely liberality. His great 
works enriched the industrious, without adding to the burdens of the 
country ; and the taxes were diminished by a third. 

The year 25 — the next after the attempt on Herod's life in the 
theatre — was one of great misfortunes. A long drought, followed 
by unproductive seasons, involved Judaea in famine, and its usual 
consequence, a dreadful pestilence. Herod took a noble, and at the 
same time a most politic course. He sent to Egypt for corn, sacri- 
ficing for the purchase the costly decorations of his palace and his 
silver and gold plate. He was thus able to make regular distribu- 
tions of corn and clothing, on an enormous scale, for the present 
necessities of the people, as well as to supply seed for the next year's 
crop. The result was to remove to a great degree the animosity 
occasioned by his proceedings in the previous year. 

In this year or the next Herod took another wife, the 
b. c 22 . 

daughter of an obscure priest of Jerusalem named Simon. 

Shortly before. the marriage Simon was made high-priest in the room 
of Joshua, or Jesus, the son of Phaneus, who appears to have suc- 
ceeded Ananel, and was now deposed to make way for Herod's future 
father-in-law. It was probably on the occasion of this marriage that 
he built a new and extensive palace immediately adjoining the old 
wall at the northwest corner of the upper city, about the spot now 
occupied by the Latin convent, in which, as memorials of his connec- 
tion with Caesar and Agrippa, a large apartment, superior in size to 
the Sanctuary of the Temple, was named after each. This palace 



560 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



b. c. 20-18. 



was very strongly fortified : it communicated with the three great 
towers on the wall erected shortly after, and it became the citadel, 
"special fortress," as Josephus calls it, of the upper city. A 
road led to it from the northern gate in the west wall of the 
Temple enclosure. 

But his great claim to the favor of the Jews was that 
restoration of the Temple, the design of which he an- 
nounced to the people assembled at the Passover (b. c. 20 or 19). 
If we may believe Josephus, he pulled down the whole edifice to its 
foundations and laid them anew on an enlarged scale ; but the ruins 
still exhibit, in some parts, what seem to be the foundations laid by 
Zerubbabel, and beneath them the more massive substructions of 
Solomon. The new edifice was a stately pile of Grseco-Roman archi- 
tecture, built in white 
marble with gilded acro- 
teria. It is minutely de- 
scribed by Josephus, and 
the New Testament has 
made us familiar with 
the pride of the Jew r s in 
its magnificence.* A dif- 
ferent feeling, however, 
marked the commence- 
ment of the work, which 
met with some opposition 
from the fear that what 
Herod had begun he 
would not be able to 
finish. He overcame all 
jealousy by engaging not to pull down any part of the existing 
buildings till all the materials for the new edifice were collected on 
its site. Two years appear to have been occupied in these prepara- 




OUTER COURT OF THE TEMPLE. 



* For our knowledge of the last and greatest of the Jewish Temples, we are 
indebted almost wholty to Josephus, with an occasional hint from the Talmud. 

The Temple or Naos itself was in dimensions and arrangement very similar to 
that of Solomon, or rather that of Zerubbabel — more like the latter ; but this was 
surrounded by an inner enclosure of great strength and magnificence, measuring 
as nearly as can be made out 180 cubits by 240, and adorned by porches and ten 
gate-ways of great magnificence ; and beyond this again was an outer enclosure 
measuring externally 400 cubits each way, which was adorned with porticoes of 
greater splendor than any we know of as attached to any temple of the ancient 
world : all showing how strongly Roman influence was at work in enveloping 



HEROD THE GREAT. 561 

tions, among which Josephus mentions the teaching some of the 
priests and Levites to work as masons and carpenters — and then the 
work began. 

The holy " house " ( ta °s), including the Porch, Sanctuary, and 
Holy of Holies, was finished in a year and a half (b. c. 16). Its 
completion, on the anniversary of Herod's inauguration, was cele- 

with heathen magnificence the simple templar arrangements of a Semitic people, 
which, however, remained nearly unchanged amid all this external incrustation. 

The Temple was certainly situated in the southwest angle of the area now 
known as the Haram area at Jerusalem, and its dimensions were what Josephus 
states them to be — 400 cubits, or one stadium, each way.* 

At the time when Herod rebuilt it, he enclosed a space "twice as large" as 
that before occupied by the Temple and its courts, an expression that probably 
must not be taken too literally, at least if we are to depend on the measurements 
of Hecatseus. According to them, the whole area of Herod's Temple was be- 
tween four and five times greater than that which preceded it. "What Herod did 
apparently was to take in the whole space between the Temple and the city wall 
on its eastern side, and to add a considerable space on the north and south, to 
support the porticoes which he added there. 

As the Temple terrace thus became the principal defence of the city on the 
east side, there were no gates or openings in that direction, and being situated 
on a sort of rocky brow— as evidenced from its appearance in the vaults that 
bound it on this side — it was at all later times considered unattackable from the 
eastward. The north side, too, where not covered by the fortress Antonia, 
became part of the defences of the city, and was likewise without external gates. 
On the south side, which was enclosed by the wall of Ophel, there were double 
gates nearly in the centre. These gates still exist at a distance of about 365 feet 
from the southwestern angle, and are, perhaps, the only architectural features 
of the Temple of Herod which remain in situ. This entrance consists of a double 
archway of Cyclopean architecture on the level of the ground, opening into a 
square vestibule measuring 40 feet each vt&y. From this a double tunnel, nearly 
200 feet in length, leads to a flight of steps which rise to the surface in the court 
of the Temple, exactly at that gate-way of the inner Temple which led to the 
altar, and is the one of the four gate-ways on this side by which any one arriving 
from Ophel would naturally wish to enter the inner enclosure. We learn from 
the Talmud that the gate of the inner Temple to which this passage led was 
called the "Water Gate;' 1 and it is interesting to be able to identify a spot so 
prominent in the description of Nehemiah (xii. 37). Toward the west there 
were four gate-ways to the external enclosure of the Temple, and the positions 
of three of these can still be traced with certainty. The first or most southern 
led over the bridge, the remains of which were identified by Dr. Robinson, and 
joined the Stoa Basilica of the Temple with the royal palace. The second was 
that discovered by Dr. Barclay, 270 feet from the southwest angle, at a level of 
17 feet below that of the southern gates just described. The site of the third is 
so completely covered by the buildings of the Meckme that it has not yet been 
seen, but it will be found between 200 and 250 feet from the northwestern angle 

* Cnmp, O. T. Hist. ch. xxii. § 5, etc., and cb. xxvii. Xotcs and III. (A), conceruiug tiio Temples of Solo- 
mon and ZernLbabel. 
36 



562 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

brated by lavish sacrifices and a great feast. Yet even this splendid 
work was not likely to mislead the Jews as to the real spirit of the 
king. While he rebuilt the temple at Jerusalem, he rebuilt also the 
temple at Samaria, and made provision, in his new city of Csesarea, 
for the celebration of heathen worship ; and it has been supposed that 
the rebuilding of the Temple furnished him with the opportunity of 
destroying the authentic collection of genealogies which was of the 
highest importance to the priestly families. Herod, as appears from 
his public designs, affected the dignity of a second Solomon, but he 
joined the licence of that monarch to his magnificence; and it was 

of the Temple area ; for, owing to the greater width of the southern portico 
beyond that of the northern, the Temple itself was not in the centre of its 
enclosure, but situated more toward the north. The fourth was that which led 
over the causeway which still exists at a distance of 600 feet from the south- 
western angle. 

Cloisters. — The most magnificent part of the Temple, in an architectural point 
of view, seems certainly to have been the cloisters which were added to the outer 
court when it was enlarged by Herod. The cloisters in the west, north, and 
east sides were composed of double rows of Corinthian columns, 25 cubits or 37 
feet 6 inches in height, with flat roofs, and resting against the outer wall of the 
Temple. These, however, were immeasurably surpassed in magnificence by the 
royal porch or Stoa Basilica, which overhung the southern wall. It consisted 
of a nave and two aisles, that toward the Temple being open, that toward the 
country closed by a wall. The breadth of the centre aisle was 45 feet ; of the 
side aisles 30 from centre to centre of the pillars ; their height 50 feet, and that 
of the centre aisle 100 feet. Its section was thus something in excess of that of 
York Cathedral, while its total length was one stadium or 600 Greek feet, or 100 
feet in excess of York, or the largest Gothic cathedrals. This magnificent struc- 
ture was supported by 162 Corinthian columns. 

The court of the Temple was very nearly a square. It may have been exactly 
so, for we have not all the details to enable us to feel quite certain about it. The 
Middoth says it was 187 cubits east and west, and 137 north and south. To the 
eastward of this was the court of the women. The great ornament of these 
inner courts seems to have been their gate-ways, the three especially on the 
north and south leading to the Temple court. These, according to Josephus, 
were of great height, strongly fortified and ornamented with great elaboration. 
But the wonder of all was the great eastern gate leading from the court of the 
women to the upper court. It was in all probability the one called the " Beauti- 
ful Gate " in the New Testament. 

Immediately within this gate-way stood the altar of burnt-offerings. Both the 
Altar and the Temple were enclosed by a low parapet one cubit in height, placed 
so as to keep the people separate from the priests while the latter were performing 
their functions. 

Within this last enclosure, toward the westward, stood the Temple itself. As 
before mentioned, its internal dimensions were the same as those of the Temple 
of Solomon. There is no reason for doubting that the Sanctuary always stood 
on the identically same spot in which it had been placed by Solomon a thousand 
years before it was rebuilt by Herod. 



HEROD THE GREAT. 563 

said that the monument which he raised over the royal tombs was 
due to the fear which seized him after a sacrilegious attempt to rob 
them of secret treasures. 

About b. c. 9 — eight years from the commencement — the court and 
cloisters of the Temple were finished, and the bridge between the 
south cloister and the upper city (demolished by Pompey) was doubt- 
less now rebuilt with that massive masonry of which some remains 
still survive. At this time equally magnificent works were being 
carried on in another part of the city, namely, in the old wall at the 
northwest corner, contiguous to the palace, where three towers of great 
size and magnificence were erected on the wall, and one as an outwork 
at a small distance to the north. The latter was called Psephinus, the 
three former were, Hippicus, after one of his friends — Phasaelus, after his 
brother — and Mariamne, after his queen. Phasaelus appears to have 
been erected first of the three, though it cannot have been begun at 
the time of PhasaeTs death, as that took place some years before 
Jerusalem came into Herod's hands. The Temple continued after- 
ward to receive fresh additions, besides the repairs of injuries done in 
frequent tumults, so that, when it was visited by our Lord at the be- 
ginning of his ministry (a. d. 27), it was said that the building had 
occupied the intervening forty years. Nor did it cease then ; for 
Josephus places its completion by Herod Agrippa II. about A. d. 65, 
only five years before its final destruction ; an act in which its finisher, 
and the great-grandson of its founder, was the ally of the Romans, 
A. d. 70. The great Agrippa, though a heathen, is connected with 
the Temple in another way. When on a visit to Herod, he propi- 
tiated the Jews by offering a hecatomb of oxen, and feasted all the 
people, Herod having joined in his heathen sacrifices at Caesarea. 
During this period, in fact, Herod was drawing closer to his patron. 
In the beginning of B. c. 14 he joined Agrippa in the Euxine with a 
powerful fleet, and his services were rewarded by the addition of the 
territory to the east of the lake of Gennesareth, where Herod hunted 
the robbers of Trachonitis out of their mountain caves with wonder- 
ful vigor and relentless cruelty. Part of this region was formed into 
a tetrarchy for his brother Pheroras. He also procured from Agrippa 
the restoration of privileges and immunities to the Jews of the " Dis- 
persion." On his return, in the autumn of the same year, he addressed 
the people assembled at the Feast of Tabernacles, and remitted them 
a fourth of the annual tax. 

.,_ „ The eye turned from all this splendor to Herod's domes- 
b. c. 13-7. , ,.„ 

tic life meets one of the most appalling spectacles in the 



564 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

pages of history. The source of all his cruelties is to be found in his 
usurpation. His jealousy was excited by the Asrnonsean blood which 
flowed in the veins of his own sons by his marriage with Mariamne ; 
and his conscience, ever reproaching him with her murder, prompted 
him to suspect her avengers in her children. Those who had urged 
him on to the condemnation of Mariamne had better reason for the 
like fears on their own account. So when Herod brought back Aris- 
tobulus and Alexander from their three years' residence at Rome, 
their destruction was already half-prepared. Their fate was sealed 
by the enthusiasm of the people, who hailed in their graceful persons 
and popular manners the true scions of the Asmonsean house. Herod, 
who never displayed that morose depravity which loves wickedness 
for its own sake, treated the youths at first like a father. He married 
Alexander to Glaphyra, the daughter of Arehelaus, king of Cappa- 
docia', and Aristobulus to his cousin Berenice, the daughter of Salome. 
Even this union did not appease Salome's jealous ambition. With 
the aid of Herod's brother, Pheroras, she so far wrought on his fears 
as to induce him to send for Antipater, his eldest son by Doris, 
whom he had divorced to marry Mariamne. Antipater proved a 
deadly and unscrupulous enemy to his brothers, who were at length 
carried by Herod before the tribunal of Augustus at Aquileia (b. c. 
13). Herod was accompanied by Nicolaus Damascexus, the inti- 
mate friend both of Augustus and himself, whose eloquence was so 
often of service to the Herodian family. This distinguished rhetori- 
cian, a native of Damascus, and the son of Antipater and Stratonice, 
was the companion of Herod's studies, and his mediator with Augus- 
tus whenever some especially flagrant act of the Jewish king stirred 
the emperor's indignation. His name is curiously preserved in the 
medieval appellation of the palm-tree (nicolai), a present of the finest 
fruit of which was made to him by Augustus on this occasion. Nico- 
laus wrote lives of Augustus and of himself, and a Universal History. 
The emperor effected a reconciliation; but still Antipater was placed 
before the sons of Mariamne in the succession to the throne; and, 
being sent to Rome in the train of Agrippa, he tried in all his letters 
to renew Herod's suspicions against them. Herod's return from a 
visit to Rome, in B. c. 11, was again followed by an address to the 
people assembled at the Feast of Tabernacles, in which the announce- 
ment of Antipater as his successor — a prince not of the Asmonsean 
blood — was recommended by new exemptions. The whole atmosphere 
of the court was poisoned with distrust. False accusers shared the 
fate of the accused ; slaves were tortured to extract evidence ; and at 



HEROD THE GREAT. 5C5 

last Alexander was tempted to a most improbable confession. A fresh 
trial took place at Berytus before the Roman governors of Syria, 
Saturninus and Volumnius, with a court of 150 assessors, by a ma- 
jority of whom the youths were condemned unheard, and Herod's 
claim to the power of life and death over them was confirmed. After 
some hesitation he caused them to be strangled at Sebaste. 

In or about the year 7 occurred the affair of the Golden 
' ' Eagle, a parallel to that of the theatre, and, like that, impor- 
tant, as showing how strongly the Maccaba3:in spirit of resistance to 
innovation on the Jewish law still existed, and how vain were any 
concessions in other directions, in the presence of such innovations. 
Herod had fixed a large golden eagle, the symbol of the Roman em- 
pire, of which Judaea was now a province, over the entrance to the 
Sanctuary, probably at the same time that he inscribed the name of 
Agrippa on the gate. As .a breach of the second commandment — 
more than as a badge of dependence — this had excited the indignation 
of the Jews, and especially of two of the chief rabbis, who instigated 
their disciples to tear it down. A false report of the king's death was 
made the occasion of doing this in open day, and in the presence of a 
large number of people. Being taken before Herod, the rabbis 
defended their conduct and were burned alive. The high-priest 
Matthias was deposed, and Joazar took his place. 

To complete the series of his domestic tragedies, Herod's favored son, 
Antipater, conspired against his life with his favorite brother, Phero- 
ras. The wife of Pheroras was connected with the Pharisees, 7000 
of whom had refused to take the oath of allegiance, and she was ac- 
cused of disseminating disloyal prophecies. Pheroras fell into dis- 
grace; but in his last illness, which soon followed, Herod treated him 
with a kindness which moved him to abandon his designs. Upon his 
death, not without suspicion of poison, Herod instituted an inquiry ; 
the whole plot was revealed, and proved by the confession of his wife. 
Atipater, who had gone to Rome to avoid suspicion, was returning to 
reap, as he supposed, the fruit of his parricide, when he was seized at 
Sebaste, brought to trial before Herod and Varus, the Roman gover- 
nor of Syria, and condemned on the clearest evidence. 

While his doom awaited the confirmation of Augustus, Herod was 
seized with a most painful and loathsome disease. The increasing 
torments of his ulcerated body, which derived no benefit from the 
warm baths of Callirhoe, drove him to new acts of frenzied cruelty ; 
but we may well doubt whether the fancy of what he might have felt 
does not prevail over sober fact in the statement, that he ordered the 



566 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

representatives of the chief families of Judaea to be shut up in the 
hippodrome at Jericho, and to be put to death as soon as he expired, 
that his funeral might not want mourners. 

His rage and terror were brought to a climax by a new 

B c 4 

and strange danger, threatening the crown which had cost 
him so much. A caravan, headed by persons of great distinction, 
arrived at Jerusalem, making the ominous inquiry, " Where is he that 
is born King of the Jews?" and declaring that the star of his 
Nativity had guided them from the distant East. Herod well knew 
the significance of that title. His agitation was shared by all the peo- 
ple of Jerusalem, though doubtless from widely different feelings. 
Assembling the teachers of the law, he obtained their opinion, on the 
authority of the prophet Micah, that Bethlehem would be the birth- 
place of the Messiah. Secretly calling for the strangers, and having 
learned from them the precise time of the star's appearance, he sent 
them to Bethlehem, and bade them return to inform him when they 
had found the babe, that he too might go and worship him. Having 
in vain awaited their return, he resolved to rid himself of the dreaded 
rival by the massacre of all the babes in Bethlehem and its district, 
from the age of two years old and under. The consummation of this 
sentence, and the escape of Jesus, belong to the next book of our his- 
tory. We here regard the transaction from the point of view of 
Herod's life. Vast as we know the issues at stake to have been, we 
can hardly be surprised that, amid all the horrors of Herod's last 
days, the murder of some ten or twelve children in a small* country 
town escaped the notice of the Jews at the time, and of their historian 
afterward. 

They soon had horrors enough in their very midst. The embassy 
returned from Rome, with the consent of Augustus to Herod's dealing 
as he pleased with his guilty son, though the milder alternative of 
banishment was suggested. About the same time, Herod attempted 
suicide in a paroxysm of agony. The rumor of his death spread 
through the palace. Anti pater tried to bribe his jailor, who reported 
the offer to Herod, and the tyrant's dying breath gave the order for 
his son's execution. It appears to have been in connection with the 
fate of Antipater, perhaps as the expression of his own disgust in 
yielding to the king's importunity, that Augustus uttered the cele- 
brated sarcasm, " It is better to be Herod's hog than his son :" — for 
his religion forbade his slaughtering the former. But, if we look 
more closely into the form in which the story is preserved, we shall 
find that, amid an accidental confusion, it supplies an incidental proof 



HEROD THE GREAT. 567 

that the massacre of Bethlehem was known at Rome. After using 
his last remnant of strength to give final directions about his will, he 
expired five days after the death of Antipater, shortly before the 
Passover, b. c. 4. He had just entered on the thirty-seventh year of 
his reign, dating from the edict which gave him the kingdom, and 
the thirty-fourth of his actual possession of the throne, dating from 
the death of Antigonus.* 

Enough has appeared of Herod's abilities and vices in this summary 
of his reign. It is, perhaps, difficult to see in his character any of 
the true elements of greatness. Some have even supposed, that the 
title — the great — is a mistranslation for the elder ; and yet, on the 
other hand, he seems to have possessed the good qualities of the 
English Henry "VIII., with his vices. He maintained peace at home, 
during a long reign, by the vigor and timely generosity of his ad- 
ministration. Abroad he conciliated the good-will of the Romans 
under circumstances of unusual difficulty. His ostentatious display, 
and even his arbitrary tyranny, were calculated to inspire Orientals 
with awe. Bold and yet prudent, oppressive and yet profuse, he had 
many of the characteristics which make a popular hero ; and the title 
which may have been first given in admiration of successful despotism 
now serves to bring out in clearer contrast the terrible price at which 
the success was purchased. 

It remains to say a word upon his relation to the whole course of 
Divine Providence in the history of the Jews. As a usurper of an 
alien race, and that the hated race of Edom, and the destroyer of the 
Asmonaean house and kingdom, he cleared the ground of all who 
might have lawfully competed with Christ for the throne of David ; 
while his power united the Holy Land, in preparation for the advent 
of its predicted King. Nor was even his personal character without 
its bearing on the coming of the Christ. No government, except 
perhaps one that maintains its power over an enslaved but noble peo- 
ple by brute force, is much worse in its moral character than the peo- 
ple who submit to it; and Herod is in some sense the representative 
of the deep moral degradation of the Jews. The religious puritanism, 
which the bitter lesson of the Captivity had impressed on the Jewish 
Church, was still maintained, though only in outward form, by the 
Pharisees ; and a remnant of its living spirit was preserved amid the 
fanaticism of the Essenes ; but the more than half-heathen pomp of 

* There is no doubt that the common era of the birth of our Saviour is wrong 
by four years. Christ was born shortly before the death of Herod, and we know 
that the lalter died four years before the Christian era. 



568 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Herod too truly represented the worldly spirit which looked for an 
earthly kingdom as its highest hope. Nor are the family feuds, 
which stained the house of Herod with perpetual blood, without their 
deep significance. The palace gave the worst example, but still only 
an example, of that dissolution of the bonds of nature, which the 
prophet Malachi had marked as a sign of his coming, who alone could 
restore peace. The time was evidently at hand, when " Elijah the 
prophet should be sent before the coming of the great and dreadful 
day of the Lord ; to turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the 
heart of the children to their fathers, lest he should come and smite the 
earth with a curse." 




BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD." 



PAET III. 

The New Testament History. 

FROM THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST TO THE 
DEATH OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST. 



BOOK VIII. 

THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST ; OR THE 

REVELATION OF THE GOSPEL. 

[B. C. 5. — A. D. 30.] 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OP JOHN AND JESUS. 

[b. c. 5-a. d. 26.] 

E must pause now in the narration of the secular history of the 
Jews, to take up the narrative of the New Testament. This 
completed, we shall return to the purely Jewish history, to a 
* >®r P ro P er understanding of which a knowledge of the events re- 
corded in the writings of the Apostles is necessary. 
The History of the New Covenant divides itself into two chief parts : 
— The Revelation of the Gospel by Jesus Christ, including the accom- 
plishment of his work of redemption ; and the Propagation 
of the Gospel, and full establishment of the Christian Church, 
after his ascension. 

The former history is written in the " Gospels " of the " Four 
Evangelists," the respective openings of which furnish us with four 
different, but almost equally important, starting-points for all that 
follows. St. Matthew, who writes with the most constant reference 
to the fulfilment of prophecy, begins by showing that Jesus Christ 
was, by his reputed father Joseph, the son of David, and the son of 
Abraham ; the predicted king of the royal line of Judah ; the prom- 

569 



570 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

ised seed, in whom all kindreds of the earth were to be blessed ; the 
great object of the Covenants made by God with Abraham and with 
David. St. Mark, commencing at once with the public proclama- 
tion of Christ, dates " the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the 
Son of God" from the ministry of John the Baptist as his forerunner. 
St. Luke places in the forefront of his narrative its practical purpose, 
for the instruction of a convert to Christianity, and begins " to write 
in order " from the birth of John the Baptist, and of Christ himself. 
St. John, having his mind imbued with the mysteries revealed to 
the " disciple whom Jesus loved," goes back to a " beginning " ante- 
cedent to all time, and displays the eternal and divine glory of that 
" Life and Light," which were manifested by Christ when he appeared 
on earth. 

And what is true of the beginning of the Gospel history applies to 
each step of its subsequent development. Critics may speculate on 
some common remoter source of the narratives of the four evangelists, 
till they learn to abandon the unprofitable search : harmonists may 
pursue their useful labors so far as to be in danger of confounding the 
separate characters of the four documents in the artificial compound 
of their own making : but the student who rightly appreciates the 
purpose of God's providence, in entrusting the record to four writers 
instead of one, will trace the distinct spirit of each as really his own, 
and will find the truest harmony in the concordant spiritual impres- 
sion they produce, under the guidance of the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost. 

" The Beginning " of which St. John speaks, both in the opening 
of his Gospel and of* his General Epistle, is the true point of view for 
understanding the New Covenant. In this light the histories of the 
two covenants open with the self-same words : — "In the beginning ; " 
and there is a closer connection between them than of language only. 
The God who, in the beginning of the Old Covenant, created the 
heaven and the earth, to be the scene of man's probation, was the 
same as that divine " Word," whose dwelling " with God," both in 
essential glory and in council on men's behalf, formed the true begin- 
ning of the Covenant of Redemption. " The Word was made flesh, 
and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth ; and we beheld his glory, 
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." The discussion of 
this "great mystery of godliness," as a point of theological science, 
belongs not to the present work : we only insist on the plain truth, as 
the point of view from which our Saviour's work on earth derives al] 
its meaning. It is thus that the Apostle Paul places the same great 



BIRTH OF JOHN AND JESUS. 571 

truth before his summary of the steps by which Christ advanced from 
the cradle to the throne : — " Without controversy, great is the mystery 
of godliness ; God was manifest in the flesh, justified by the Spirit, 
seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, 
received up into glory." The narratives of the four Evangelists fill 
up the outline which the Apostle draws in these few bold strokes. 

Between the two points thus marked by St. John, there lies the 
whole preparatory training of the human race and the chosen family, 
with the successive steps in the revelation of the one great promise. 
A summary of the testimony of the old Covenant to Christ would be 
no inappropriate preface to the history of the New ; but having con- 
tinually kept in view the evangelical aspect of the Old Covenant, and 
having: to recur to it on the occasion of the fulfilment of the several 
prophecies, we may at once accompany St. Luke to the first scene 
of the history itself. 

In the reign of Herod the Great, there lived in Judsea an 

b c 5 . 

aged couple, both of them being of priestly descent, and of the 

most devout and blameless character, Zacharias and Elisabeth. 
They were childless, and Elisabeth was too old to hope for offspring. 
Now it came to the turn of Zacharias to fulfil his week of service in 
the Temple, as a priest of the course of Abia or Abijah, the 8th of 
the courses appointed by David. At the solemn moment of the daily 
(probably the morning) sacrifice, when he had carried the blood of 
the lamb into the Holy Place, and the people were praying without, 
the angel Gabriel, the same who had foretold to Daniel the time of 
the Messiah, appeared to him in the form of a man, standing by the 
altar of incense. He announced to Zacharias that Elisabeth should 
bear him a son, whose name was to be called John. The vow of a 
Nazarite was to be upon him from the womb ; and he was to dis- 
charge the very ministry which had been assigned by the prophet 
Malachi to Elijah, as the forerunner of the Lord. The doubts which 
Zacharias began to utter were silenced by the sentence of dumbness 
till the promise should be fulfilled ; and, when he came forth, his 
speechless signs convinced the waiting people that he had seen some 
strange vision. This last point is of no little importance in connec- 
tion with what we know from other sources of the state of expecta- 
tion into which the Jews were now wrought, awaiting the promise of 
the Messiah. 

Elisabeth had already been living in retirement in the hill country 
south of Jerusalem for five months, rejoicing in the removal of her 
reproach of barrenness, when in the sixth the same angel was sent on 



572 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

a similar, but still higher mission, to the city of Nazareth in Galilee. 
There lived Mary, as she is invariably called in the sacred narrative, 
without any of those titles of reverence or superstition, by which 
men, trying to adorn her incomparable dignity, have sown the seeds 
of Mariolatry. She was still a maiden, but betrothed to Joseph, 
who, like herself, was of the royal house of David.* He was a car- 
penter by occupation ; and the condition of both was lowly, though 
not that of abject poverty. 

*The genealogies of our Lord, as given in St. Matthew and St. Luke, have 
occasioned much discussion. It is sufficient to state here that the prophets an- 
nounced our Lord Jesus Christ as the seed of Abraham and the son of David, 
and the angel declared that to him should be given the throne of his father David, 
that he might reign over the house of Jacob forever. His descent from David 
and Abraham being therefore an essential part of his Messiahship, it was right 
that his genealogy should be given as a portion of Gospel truth. Considering, 
further, that to the Jews first he was manifested and preached, and that his de- 
scent from David and Abraham was a matter of special interest to them, it seems 
likely that the proof of his descent would be one especially adapted to convince 
them ; in other words, that it would be drawn from documents which they 
deemed authentic. Such were the genealogical records preserved at Jerusalem. 
And when to the above considerations we add the fact that the lineage of Joseph 
was actually made out from authentic records for the purpose of the civil census 
ordered by Augustus, it becomes morally certain that the genealogy of Jesus 
Christ was extracted from the public registers. Another consideration adds yet 
further conviction. It has often excited surprise that the genealogies of Christ 
should both give the descent of Joseph, and not Mary. But if these genealogies 
were those contained in the public registers, it could not be otherwise. In them 
Jesus, the son of Mary, the espoused wife of Joseph, could only appear as 
Joseph's son (comp. John i. 45). In transferring them to the pages of the Gos- 
pels, the evangelists only added the qualifying expression " as was supposed " 
(Luke iii. 23, and its equivalent, Matt. i. 16). 

But now to approach the difficulties with which the genealogies of Christ are 
thought to be beset. These difficulties have seemed so considerable in all ages as 
to drive commentators to very strange shifts. Some, as early as the second cen- 
tury, broached the notion, which Julius Africanus vigorously repudiates, that the 
genealogies are imaginary lists, designed only to set forth the union of royal and 
priestly descent in Christ. Others on the contrary, to silence this and similar 
solutions, brought in a Beus ex maclrind, in the shape of a tradition derived from 
the Desposyni, in which, by an ingenious application of the law of Levirate to 
two uterine brothers, whose mother had married first into the house of Solomon, 
and afterward into the house of Nathan, some of the discrepancies were recon- 
ciled, though the meeting of the two genealogies in Zerubbabel and Salathiel is 
wholly unaccounted for. Later, chiefly among Protestant divines, the theory 
was invented of one genealogy being Joseph's and the other Mary's, a theory in 
direct contradiction to the plain letter of the Scripture narrative, and leaving un- 
touched as many difficulties as it solves. The fertile invention of Annius of 
Viterbo forged a book in Philo's name, which accounted for the discrepancies by 
asserting that all Christ's ancestors, from David downward, had two names. 



BIRTH OF JOHN AND JESUS. 573 

For Mary was reserved the lot which had been the object of intense 
desire to every Hebrew bride, and to every mother of the patriarchal 
race, since Eve first vainly imagined that it had been fulfilled, " I 
have gotten a man, even Jehovah" — the promised seed, the Redeemer 
from sin. Her high destiny was revealed by the angel's salutation, 
" Hail ! thou that art highly favored, the Lord be with thee : blessed 
art thou among women." As she trembled with astonishment, he 
proceeded to announce her miraculous visitation by the power of the 
Holy Ghost, and the birth of a son whose name she was to call Jesus, 
who was to be the Son of the Highest and the heir of his father 
David in a kingdom without end. He confirmed her faith by the 
example of Elisabeth, who was her relative, though they were of 
different tribes; and Mary could only reply in those simple words of 
submissive piety, " Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto me 
according to thy word !" 

The circumstance, however, of one line running up to Solomon, and the other to 
Nathan, was overlooked. Other fanciful suggestions have been offered ; while 
infidels, from Porphyry downward, have seen in what they call the contradiction 
of Matthew and Luke a proof of the spuriousness of the Gospels ; and critics, 
like Professor Norton, a proof of such portions of Scripture being interpolated. 
Others, like Alford, content themselves with saying that solution is impossible, 
without further knowledge than we possess. But it is not too much to say that 
after all, in regard to the main points, there is no difficulty at all, if only the 
documents in question are dealt with reasonably, and after the analogy of similar 
Jewish documents in the Old Testament ; and that the clues to a right under- 
standing of them are so patent, and so strongly marked, that it is surprising that 
so much diversity of opinion should have existed. The following propositions 
will explain the true construction of these genealogies : 

1. They are both the genealogies of Joseph, i. e., of Jesus Christ, as the reputed 
and legal son of Joseph and Mary. One has only to read them to be satisfied of 
this. The notices of Joseph as being of the house of David, by the same evange- 
lists who give the pedigree, are an additional confirmation (Matt. i. 20 ; Luke i. 
27, ii. 4, etc.); and since there can be little doubt that these pedigrees were ex- 
tracted from the public archives, they must have been Joseph's. 

2. The genealogy of St. Matthew is Joseph's genealogy as legal successor to 
the throne of David, i. e., it exhibits the successive heirs of the kingdom ending 
with Christ, as Joseph's reputed son. St. Luke's is Joseph's private genealogy, 
exhibiting his real birth, as David's son, and thus showing why he was heir to 
Solomon's crown. The simple principle that one evangelist exhibits that gene- 
alogy which contained the successive heirs to David's and Solomon's throne, 
while the other exhibits the paternal stem of him who was the heir, explains all the 
anomalies of the two pedigrees, their agreements as well as their discrepancies, 
and the circumstance of there being two at all. 

3. Mary the mother of Jesus, was in all probability the daughter of Jacob, and 
first cousin to Joseph her husband. So that in point of fact, though not of for, w, 
both the genealogies are as much hers as her husband's. 



574 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Immediately after the Annunciation, Mary hastened to visit her 
cousin Elisabeth, who was residing with her husband, in one of the 
Levitical cities among the hills of Judah, probably Hebron, the an- 
cient capital of the priests, or Juttah. The first words she uttered on 
her entrance seemed to give life to her cousin's unborn child ; and, 
prompted by this sign, Elisabeth saluted Mary as " the mother of the 
Lord." It was then that Mary, doubtless by immediate inspiration, 
uttered the first of those three glorious canticles concerning the advent 
of Christ, which are preserved in the opening chapters of St. Luke, 
and which have become the chief hymns of the Christian Church. 
Mary stayed with Elisabeth three months, till just before the birth of 
John the Baptist. 

That event gave rise to the first public intimation of the wonders 
that were about to dawn on Israel. Elisabeth's relations and friends 
assembled to congratulate her, and on the eighth day from its birth, the 
child was brought to the priest for circumcision. On this occasion 
the new-born child was named, as if to connect it by its personal 
identity with the privileges and obligations of Jehovah's covenant. 
The near relatives, who took the lead as Zacharias was still dumb, 
were giving the child his father's name, when Elisabeth insisted on 
its being called John, a name sacred by many recollections, especially 
in the house of Levi, and borne by the Maccabsean princes, but 
strange to the house of Zacharias. The father, appealed to by signs, 
surprised the company by writing on his tablets, "His name is John." 
With this act of obedience to the angelic vision, his tongue was loosed, 
and he praised God. The news spread through all the hills of Judah, 
not merely exciting wonder, but deep thought and expectation, "What 
manner of child shall this be?" Signs, connected probably with the 
early development of the power and temper of the Nazarite, showed 
that " the hand of the Lord was with him." The spirit of prophecy 
came upon Zacharias ; and, in the second of the hymns already men- 
tioned, he blessed God who had at length visited his people with 
redemption, and raised up for them a prince and Saviour of the house 
of David, to fulfil his covenant with Abraham ; and announced that 
John was the prophet of God and the herald of this Saviour. 

The child's training was in accordance with this destiny. Not only 
bound by the vow of a jSiazarite, but appointed to proclaim repentance 
to a people sunk in all the sins that spring from self-indulgence, he 
had to practise the sternest self-denial, but for which perhaps he might 
have become another Samson : — " The child grew and waxed strong in 
spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing to Israel." 



BIRTH OF JOHN AND JESUS. 575 

This text compels us to abandon all the fancies of the great painters, 
whose "Holy Families" exhibit John in familiar intercourse with 
Jesus, whom he did not know when he came to him for baptism. 
While Jesus was brought up at Nazareth, John lived in the wild 
region west of the Dead Sea, with the prophet's garment of camel's 
hair girded about him, feeding on locusts and wild honey, and pre- 
pared for his mission, like his prototype Elijah, by solitary commu- 
nion with God. 

Meanwhile Mary, on her return to Nazareth, had her joy overcast 
by a great trial. According to Jewish law, the tie of betrothal was 
as sacred as the marriage vow itself; and Mary's apparent violation 
of that bond exposed her to the death of an adulteress. But Joseph 
was no hard man, and he was thinking of giving her a bill of divorce- 
ment privately, when an angel revealed to him, in a dream, the holy 
mystery of Mary's conception, and repeated the injunction already 
given to her to call the child Jesus, " for he shall save his people 
from their sins." Thus was fulfilled the great prophecy of Isaiah, 
concerning the birth of Emmanuel (God with us) from a virgin mother. 
Joseph immediately obeyed the command of the angel to complete 
the espousal of Mary, but he abstained from consummating the mar- 
riage till after the birth of Jesus. The subsequent virginity of Mary 
is simply another of the figments which really add nothing to her 
dignity or holiness. 

Though the home of Joseph and Mary was at Nazareth, the sure 
word of prophecy had declared that the Christ should be born at 
Bethlehem, the native place of his royal father David; and this was 
accomplished by the agency of the Roman emperor. A decree was 
issued by Augustus for a census of " all the world " over which his 
power extended, that is the Roman Empire and its subject kingdoms. 
The connection of Judaea with the province of Syria, first established 
by Pompey, was not regarded as utterly dissolved by Herod's eleva- 
tion to the throne ; nor was the dying prince, for such was Herod's 
condition at this time, likely to contest the authority under whose 
shelter his reign had flourished, even though the census might betray 
the intention of absorbing his kingdom into the empire. The sacred 
pride of the Jews in their genealogies would lead them to hasten to 
the head cities of their tribes and families. Thus Mary, though about 
to become a mother, traversed with her husband the length of the 
land, from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the royal city of David, to whose 
house they both belonged. The caravanserai was crowded with 
wealthier and more important travellers ; so they sought shelter in a 



u 

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—i 




,70 



BIRTH OF JOHN AND JESUS. 577 

stable. Here Mary gave birth to the Saviour of the world, and 
made his cradle in the manger of the cattle.* 

But there was no lack of heralds and attendants to welcome Him 
who said, " Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
No sooner was Jesus born than his Gospel — "good tidings of great joy 
to all the people " — was proclaimed by an angel of Jehovah to certain 
shepherds, who were keeping their flocks in the fields by night, the 
fit image of the "great shepherd of the sheep." While he directed 
them to Bethlehem, the glory of God shone round them, and a mul- 
titude of the heavenly host joined in the chorus, — " Glory to God in 
the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward (or among) men." 
Hastening to Bethlehem, the shepherds found the new-born child 
with his parents, and became the first witnesses to his advent. They 
praised God, and spread the news abroad, and Mary pondered in her 
heart the welcome which her babe had received from heaven. 

Already acting on the principle afterward proclaimed by Christ, — 
" it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," — since he was not only 
" born of a woman," but also " born under the law," his parents 
brought him to the priest for circumcision at the earliest time ap- 
pointed by the law, the eighth day from his birth ; and he was called 
Jesus, as the angel had commanded. But the law had still another 
claim upon him ; and the only begotten son of God was presented to 



* According to the received chronology, which is in fact that of Dionysius 
Exiguus in the sixth century, our Lord was born in the year of Rome 754, which 
is therefore called a. d. 1. But modern writers, Avith hardly an exception, believe 
that this calculation places the Nativity some years too late ; although they differ 
as to the amount of error. Herod the Great died, according to Josephus, in the 
thirty-seventh year after he was appointed king. His elevation coincides with 
the consulship of Cn. Domitius Calvinus and C. Asinius Pollio, and this deter- 
mines the date a. u. c. 714=b. c. 40. There is reason to think that in such cal- 
culations Josephus reckons the years from the month Nisan to Nisan ; and also 
that the death of Herod took place in the beginning of the thirty-seventh year, or 
just before the Passover ; if then thirty-six complete years are added, they give 
the year of Herod's death a. u. c. 750=b, c. 4. As Jesus was born during the 
life of Herod, it follows from these data that the Nativity took place some time 
before the month of April, 750 ; and if it took place only a few months before 
Herod's death, then its date would be four years earlier than the Dionysian 
reckoning. We have no precise data for determining the interval between the 
birth of Jesus and the death of Herod ; but there are some reasons for supposing 
it to have been briefer than the space between u Christmas" and "Easter." The 
epoch of the Christian era, however, is independent of this nice calculation, being 
the zero point between Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 nearest the actual event, i. e., the begin- 
ning of b. c. 4. — Mr. Lewin, however, places the birth of our Lord in b. c. 6, 
about August 1. 
37 



578 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

him in the same manner as the other first-born sons of Jewish mothers. 
As soon as the forty days allotted for purification after the birth of a 
son had expired, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple at 
Jerusalem, with the sacrifice appointed for the poorer sort of people, 
" a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons," one for the burnt- 
offering, and the other for the sin-offering, — in place of the full sacri- 
fice of a lamb for the burnt-offering, and a pigeon or turtle-dove for 
the sin-offering. 

This first appearance of Jesus in the Temple was the signal for his 
reception by those who may be regarded as the representatives of the 
spiritual remnant of Israel. An aged man and woman had long 
watched, with prophetic spirit, for the dawn of the Sun of Righteous- 
ness. Simeox, who had been forewarned by the Holy Spirit, that he 
should not die till he had seen the " Anointed of Jehovah/' was now 
guided by the same spirit into the Temple; and, taking the child in 
his arms, he proclaimed him, for the first time, as the Christ of God, 
and declared that, for himself, the time was come to depart in peace, 
since his eyes had seen the Salvation of God, the Light of the Gen- 
tiles, and the Glory of Israel. But his prophecy was not ended ; for, 
as Joseph and Mary wondered at his words, he announced the varied 
reception which Christ would meet from his own people, the trial of 
the inmost hearts of men by his spirit, and the sorrows which, in 
striking at him, should smite through his mother's heart — the primal 
curse and blessing on the woman. 

Simeon had scarcely ceased, when Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, 
of the tribe of Asher, entered the sacred court. This devout woman 
had employed her widowhood of eighty-four years, after a marriage 
of only seven, in constant prayers and fasting within the precincts of 
the Temple. She was a prophetess ; and in that character she now 
gave thanks to God for the advent of the Christ, and repented her 
testimony to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. It seems 
to be implied that these " true Israel" were few, and known to one 
another, a small church among the nation ; nor ought we to overlook 
the part which the express mention of Anna's tribe gives to Israel, as 
well as Judah, in the welcoming of Christ. 

Nor was he without a welcome from the heathen world. 

B c 4 

" The Gentiles came to his light, and kings to the brightness 

of his rising." Tradition and philosophy have had much to say of 
the " wise men " — properly Magiaxs — who were guided by a star 
from "the East" to Jerusalem, where they suddenly appeared in the 
days of Herod the Great, inquiring for the new-born king of the Jews, 




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570 



580 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

whom they had come to worship. That they were three in number, 
and that they were named Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar, are state- 
ments as little genuine as the skulls which grin out of the gems that 
deck their shrine at Cologne. If not " kings," they are proved to be 
persons of the greatest wealth and distinction by the "treasures" 
which they opened, to present their gifts to Christ ; and the nature of 
those gifts, "gold, and frankincense, and myrrh," implies the homage 
commonly paid by subject nations to their superior kings and con- 
querors. As to the country from which they came, opinions vary 
greatly; but their following the guidance of a star, and their name of 
Magians, seem to point to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, 
where astronomy was early cultivated by the Chaldseans, and where 
the old Zend religion of Zoroaster had been established by the Per- 
sians. That religion, remaining pure from the grosser forms of idola- 
try, preserved the hope of a great deliverer, who should reform the 
world and establish a reign of peace. That some tradition, influenced 
possibly by the Jews of the Dispersion, went so far as to make this 
deliverer a " King of the Jews," seems a fair inference from the direct 
form of their inquiry for him. As to the sign which guided them, 
the chief difficulties have arisen from the attempt to find a natural 
explanation ; for the plain narrative of St. Matthew evidently repre- 
sents it as a miracle vouchsafed for the occasion. The ingenious con- 
jecture of certain astronomers, that the appearance of the star was 
caused by a remarkable conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, is now 
exploded. The approach of the two planets was not at all near 
enough for them to be mistaken for a single star ; nor could habitual 
observers of the heavens fail to recognize the positions of such well- 
known bodies. Besides, their "standing over the place where the 
young child was," so as to define the spot on the surface of the earth, 
is utterly inconceivable. It only remains for us to be content with 
the obvious explanation, that some new luminary, whether meteoric 
or celestial, was made to appear, in a manner distinct enough to the 
eyes of practised astronomers, expressly to guide the sages on their 
way. Ages before, a prophet from the same regions had predicted 
the Messiah by the sign of " the star that should arise out of Jacob ;" 
and, while these sages watched the heavens with the reverence of 
worshippers, it pleased God to use their own ideas as the source of 
new light, just as Paul declared to the Athenians the "Unknown 
God," whom they ignorantly worshipped. 

Their arrival and inquiries threw Jerusalem into commotion. With 
his usual craft, Herod summoned the Sanhedrim, and learned that 



BIRTH OF JOHN AND JESUS. 531 

the Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem. Having inquired from 
the Magians the time of the star's appearance, as a guide to that of 
the child's birth, he professed his desire to worship the new-born king, 
and sent them on to discover his abode. The star again guided them 
over the five miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and at length stood 
still above the house where Jesus was. They paid him their willing 
homage, and presented their costly gifts, the first-fruits of the wealth 
and wisdom of the Gentile world. 

The offerings which they brought have been regarded as symboli- 
cal : the gold was tribute to a king, the frankincense was for the use 
of a priest, and the myrrh was a holy preparing for the tomb ; but, in 
a more general view, these were at any rate the offerings made by 
worshippers, and in that light must the Magi be regarded. By means 
of a dream, a form of divination which they were wont to follow with 
implicit faith, though it is not probable that the reason was revealed 
to them, they were warned by God not to return to Herod, and they 
departed into their own country by another route, perhaps by Hebron 
and round the southern end of the Dead Sea. Their evasion increased 
the fears and rage of Herod, who was now racked by the tortures of 
his last illness. He who had sacrificed wife and sons to the safety of 
his crown, resolved to make sure of the destruction of the unknown 
infant by a general massacre of all the male children in Bethlehem 
and its territory under two years old. 

The angel of God was again sent to Joseph, to direct him 
to carry # Jesus and his mother into Egypt, where they re- 
mained in safety while the mothers of Bethlehem realized the mourn- 
ful picture long before drawn by Jeremiah under the image of Rachel, 
whose sepulchre was at their gates, weeping for her children, and re- 
fusing to be comforted, because they were not. The abode of Jesus 
in Egypt formed a step by which the course of his life was assimilated 
to that of his people's history, and so fulfilled, in its highest sense, the 
saying of the prophet Hosea, " Out of Egypt have I called my son." 
The death of Herod, shortly before the Passover of the same year, was 
the signal for their return to Palestine, at the command of the angel 
to Joseph in a dream. But. on entering Judaea, they learned that the 
people had been disappointed of the succession of Herod Antipas, and 
that the throne was occupied by Archelaus, who was likely to tread 
in his father's steps. So they turned aside by the coast road to Gali- 
lee, and returned to their own city of Nazareth, whose name, odious 
to the Jews of Judah, gave Jesus and his disciples their first appella- 
tion of Nazarenes, as the prophets had foretold. 



5S2 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Here, in the retirement of his father's lowlv abode, we lose sight of 
Jesus for twelve years. We are only told that " the child grew, and 
waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was 
upon him." It is clear from the next event recorded in his history, 
that these words imply not only a growth in moral and spiritual ex- 
cellence, but a conscious preparation for his ministry by communion 
with his divine Father and by diligent study of the Scriptures. His 
public ministry did not begin with a sudden impulse, but was pre- 
pared for by his whole life. The consciousness of his divine nature 
and power grew and ripened and strengthened until the time of his 
showing unto Israel. The very silence of the evangelists, however, 
leads to some important inferences respecting our Saviour's training 
in boyhood and in youth. As Xeander has observed — " His educa- 
tion for a teacher was not due to any of the theological schools then 
existing in Juda?a ;" and thus was he the better prepared to stand forth, 
in perfect independence, as the antagonist and rebuker alike of the 
dead ritualism and hypocritical casuistry of the Pharisees and Scribes, 
and the negative coldness of the Sadducees. And while the rigid 
purity which he taught might suggest something of an outward resem- 
blance to the Essenes, he had no real connection with that ascetic 
body, to deaden his sympathies with humanity at large. Herein was 
the contrast with his forerunner, which he himself traces — "John 
came neither eating nor drinking : the Son of Mau, came eating 
and drinking." 

Ever since the Captivity, the great festivals, like the other 

^ ' institutions of the law, had been observed with regularitv, 
a. d. 8. * & . » 

and even the women went up to Jerusalem once a year to 
keep the Passover. Such was the custom of our Saviour's parents ; 
and when he reached the age of twelve, tie accompanied them to the 
ft-ast. When Joseph and Mary left Jerusalem, he remained behind, 
h is absence being only discovered after the caravan had gone a day's 
journey. His sorrowing parents found him in the Temple, the cen- 
tre of a circle of the professed teachers of the law, astonishing all who 
heard him, both by his replies to them and by his own questions. 
There is nothing here to imply a contentious spirit; but, in the sin- 
cere effort to obtain instruction, he could not but show the fruits of 
his profound study of the Scriptures, and the power of the Spirit that 
had "filled him with wisdom." This " spiritual discernment," by 
which he opened the true meaning of God's Word, was the " under- 
standing" which astonished the "natural men," who had long been 
bound down to the mere letter. 







t-4 



5 S3 



584 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



This interview with the Jewish Rabbis is the first of several discus- 
sions in which we may trace our Lord's independence of the teaching 
of the schools. rt Had Jesus been trained in the Jewish seminaries, 
his opponents would cloubtless have reproached him with the arro- 
gance of setting up for master where he himself had been a pupil. 
But, on the contrary, we find that they censured him for attempting 
to explain the Scriptures without having enjoyed the advantages of 
the schools. His first appearance as a teacher in the synagogue at 
Nazareth caused even greater surprise, as he was known there, not as 
one learned in the law, but rather as a carpenter's son, who had per- 
haps himself worked at his father's trade. The general impression 
of his discourses everywhere was, that they contained totally different 
materials from those furnished by the theological schools." 

His celebrated reply to his mother — " Why did ye seek me ? Knew 

ye not that I must be 
about my Father's busi- 
ness?" not only reveals 
his full consciousness of 
his divine mission, and 
his zeal to enter upon it at 
the earliest opportunity ; 
but his use of the word 
Father derives a peculiar 
significance from the re- 
monstrance of M a r y — 
"Behold thy father and I 
have sought thee sorrow- 
ing." And yet, though 
thus conscious of a higher source of his being, and a higher authority 
for his actions, he again " fulfilled all the righteousness" of filial duty, 
and proved that he had learned at this early age the hardest of all 
lessons, to wait God's time when we seem to be not only wasting our 
own, but losing opportunities of serving him. 

The gospel narrative here passes over another interval of eighteen 
years, from Christ's 12th year to his 30th, with the brief record — 
" He went down with his parents, and came to Nazareth, and was 
subject unto them : but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. 
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God 
and man." That he shared all the outward circumstances of Joseph's 
lowly lot, is clear from the taunt of his fellow-citizens of Nazareth 
and the neighborhood — " Is not this the carpenter's son ?" That he 




JESUS DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS. 



BIRTH OF JOHN AND JESUS. 585 

worked at his father's bench, may be inferred not only from the cir- 
cumstances of the case, but also from the laudable custom of the Jews, 
to bring up their sons in some trade and handicraft. Joseph appears 
to have died at some time between the visit of Jesus to the Temple in 
his twelfth year and his entrance upon his ministry. Mary had a 
sister also called Mary, the wife of Alphseus or Cleopas. Her husband 
appears likewise to have died before the ministry of our Lord com- 
menced ; and the two widowed sisters, with their families, apparently 
lived together at Nazareth. 

That the "Son of the Highest" was born in an humble station, 
and that the Creator of the world labored as a workman, established 
from the first his sympathy with all conditions of humanity without 
distinction of rank and occupation, and marked the beginning of the 
influence of Christianity on the civil and social relations of mankind. 
In that lowly condition, too, he would see an abundant measure of 
the suffering which he came to relieve, and enough of the sin from 
which all suffering springs, to supply the want of its consciousness in 
his own sinless nature. For the experience of sin in the world into 
which he had come was needful to prepare him for the great work of 
saving his people from their sins. 

The later incident of his invitation, with his mother, to the mar- 
riage at Cana, as well as the social character of his public life, imply 
that the whole family lived in cheerful friendly intercourse with the 
people of their own and the surrounding villages, and that Jesus was 
no recluse. So much we may gather respecting his outer life. The 
mysteries of his intellectual, moral, and spiritual progress during that 
critical period, in which he passed from boyhood to the full maturity of 
man, are too deep for human imagination, and can only be seen in the 
fruit borne in his ministry. But there is the great fact, of the deepest 
significance for us, that " Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and 
in favor with God and man." Here is one of those traits of Christ's 
perfect humanity, which have perhaps been too little regarded by 
those who have had to defend the great doctrine of his true divinity. 
" It behoved him in all things to be made like to his brethren." This 
truth is obvious in regard to his physical growth ; but it is no less 
true of his mind and soul. Neither did the mysterious union of the 
Godhead with his human nature exempt him from learning to know 
the will of God by patient study, and to do it by discipline and self- 
denial ; nor did that complacent regard of the eternal Father for the 
co-eternal Son, which was especially exhibited on his consent to save 
mankind — " Lo ! I come to do thy will, O God " — preclude that 



586 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



growth in favor, with God as well as man, which was the natural 
reward of his true growth in virtue and in knowledge. The many 
proofs that this progress still went on during all his life are crowned 
by the last scene of trial, in which he recognized the possibility of a 
conflict between the will of God and his self-will as man, and ago- 
nized in prayer to achieve the victory : " Father ! not My will, but 
Thixe, be done." 

Such considerations are most important, not only as giving us a 
truer view of our Saviour's nature, but as showing that he has the 
perfect sympathy of experience with our moral, ay, and intellectual 
conflicts, and that his human virtues, however transcendant in degree, 
are in kind real examples, which we may imitate by the means he 
used, because " as he is, so are we in this world." 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 587 




CHAPTER XXX. 

OUR SAVIOUR'S EARLY MINISTRY — FROM THE PREACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 

TO CHRIST'S FIRST PASSOVER. 

[a. d. 26-27.] 

^HE preceding narrative left both Jesus and his appointed 
forerunner awaiting " the time of their showing to Israel/' 
the former in the circle of his. family, the latter leading a 
wild, ascetic life in the wilderness about Engedi. Mean- 
while, the state of the Holy Land was enough to show that 
" the fulness of time was come" for the appearance of the preacher 
of repentance as the herald of the kingdom of heaven. " The sceptre 
had departed from Judah " at the deposition of Archelaus, the son of 
Herod (a. d. 7) ; and Judsea was governed by a Roman procurator 
under the prefect of Syria. The degradation of seeing a heathen 
power on the ruins of the throne of David was embittered by the 
oppression of* the publicans (portitores), generally Jews — collectors 
who exacted far more than they had to pay over to the farmers of 
the revenue.* The people were ripe for rebellion; and a sect arose, 
under Judas, the Gaulonite, denying the lawfulness of paying tri- 
bute to Caesar. 

Such was the state of things in Judsea when John the 

OP 

Baptist appeared in public, at the epoch which St. Luke 
carefully marks by a concurrence of chronological data. It was in 
the 15th year of Tiberius, A. D. 26 (reckoning from his association 

*The Greek word (ttx^vcu) translated "Publicans," describes the portitores, 
or inferior officers employed as collectors of the Roman revenue. But the Latin 
word Publicani, from which the English of the A.V. has been taken, was applied 
to a higher order of men. The Roman senate farmed the vecligalia (direct taxes) 
and the portoria (customs, including the octroi on goods carried into or out of 
cities) to capitalists who undertook to pay a given sum into the treasury (publi- 
cum), and hence received the name of publicani. Contracts of this kind fell 
naturally into the hands of the equites, as the richest class of Romans. In the 
provinces were managing directors ; and under them were the portitores, the 
actual custom-house officers. The latter were commonly natives of the province 
in which they were stationed. The word f^wvat, which etymologically might 
have been used of the publicani properly so called, was used popularly, and in 
the New Testament exclusively, of the portitores. 

The system was essentially a vicious one. The publicani encouraged their 



588 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

with Augustus in the empire in A. D. 12), when Pontius Pilate was 
procurator of Judaea, Herod Antipas tetrarch of Galilee, Philip te- 
trarch of Itursea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene. 
Annas and Caiaphas are both named as high-priests ; in fact, Annas 
was deposed by Valerius Gratus in a. d. 14, and was succeeded after 
a time by his son-in-law, Caiaphas or Joseph. In the subsequent 
narrative we find both acting together, with a sort of joint authority, 
as heads of the Jewish people. The frequent changes in the high- 
prieshood at this time formed an irritating feature of the Roman 
policy. 

At this time of general commotion and expectation, the prophetic 
word of God came to John in the wilderness of Judaea, and he came 
forward as a preacher. Though he laid no claim to miraculous 
powers, there was everything about him to excite attention. A rare, 
and probably solitary specimen of the ancient Nazarites, like Samson 
and Samuel, commanding admiration by his life of ascetic retirement, 
he had assumed also the prophet's mantle of camel's hair, fastened to 
the body by a girdle, a dress which of itself recalled the person of 
Elijah. Being, in fact, the greatest, as he was the last prophet, nay, 
the greatest man of the Old Covenant, he merged all claims to per- 
sonal dignity in his one office as the forerunner of Messiah, foretold 
by the prophet Isaiah. He almost sinks his personality in his char- 
acter of a herald : — " I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
' Make straight the way of the Lord/ as saith the prophet Esaias." 
So intimate was the relation of John's mission to the advent of the 
Christ, that St. Mark pronounces John's preaching in the wilderness 
as predicted by the prophets, " the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God." 

To this character all his preaching was perfectly adapted. The 

agents, the portitoi'es, in the most vexatious or fraudulent exactions. They over- 
charged whenever they had an opportunity (Luke iii. 13). They brought false 
charges of smuggling in the hope of extorting hush-money (Luke xix. 8). The 
employment brought out all the besetting vices of the Jewish character. The 
strong feeling of many Jews as to the absolute unlawfulness of paying tribute at 
all made matters worse. The Scribes who discussed the question (Matt. xxii. 15) 
for the most part answered in the negative. In addition to their other faults, 
accordingly, the Publicans of the New Testament were regarded as traitors and 
apostates, defiled by their frequent intercourse with the heathen, willing tools of 
the oppressor. They were classed with sinners (Matt. ix. 11, xi. 19), with har- 
lots (Matt. xxi. 31, 32), with the heathen (Matt, xviii. 17). To eat and drink 
" with Publicans," seems to the Pharisaic mind incompatible with the character 
of a recognized Rabbi (Matt. ix. 11). They spoke in their scorn of our Lord as 
the friend of Publicans (Matt. xi. 19). 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 589 

prophet Malachi had long since described the work that must be done 
in the hearts of men before they could receive the coming Saviour; 
and now that John proclaimed " the kingdom of heaven is at hand," 
he preached " repentance for the remission of sins/' as the condition 
not only of entrance into that kingdom, but of exemption from utter 
destruction from the presence of the great One who was coming. He 
showed that aspect of the Gospel, on which Christ also insisted, that, 
together with the proifer of mercy, it involves a final decision, accord- 
ing as that mercy is accepted or refused. 

The outward sign which marked those who became his disciples, 
the rite from which he obtained his characteristic name, the Baptist, 
taught most impressively the putting away the evils by which the 
whole life of the people was corrupted. It is an old controversy 
whether the baptism of John was a new institution, or an imitation 
of the baptism of proselytes as practised by the Jews. But at all 
events there is no record of such a rite, conducted in the name of, and 
with reference to a particular person, before the ministry of John. 

Each class among the multitudes who flocked from Jerusalem and 
all Judaea to hear him, and receive his baptism, was taught the lesson 
of repentance in the form they most required : — the publicans to prac- 
tise honesty and moderation ; the soldiers to abstain from violence, 
false accusations, and wrongful exactions from a subject people ; the 
selfish to share their abundance with the poor ; while the rival sects 
of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who claimed the exclusive privileges 
of the covenant with Abraham, were sternly denounced as a " genera- 
tion of vipers," warned that God could raise up true children to Abra- 
ham from the very stones of the desert, and summoned to prove their 
repentance by some good fruits before the sentence already uttered was 
executed, to cut them down as barren trees, fit only to be cast into 
the fire. All that he said and did inflamed the expectation, to which 
his only answer was by proclaiming the coming of his far greater 
successor. 

These exhortations produced little effect on the two leading sects. 
Of the Pharisees and teachers of the law we are distinctly told that 
" they frustrated the counsel of God against themselves, being not 
baptized of him." It was otherwise with the mass of the people, 
and especially with the Publicans. By accepting the baptism of 
John, they gave, at the very beginning of the Gospel dispensation, an 
illustration of the great principle so often taught by Christ, that the 
sinner, conscious of his guilt, is better prepared to enter the kingdom 
of heaven by repentance, than self-righteous men who think they 



590 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

need no repentance. The career of John seems to have been very 
brief; and it has been asked how such great influence could have 
been attained in a short time. But his was a powerful nature, which 
soon took possession of those who came within its reach ; and his 
success becomes less surprising if we assume, with some commenta- 
tors, that the preaching took place in a Sabbatical year. Speaking 
generally, John had baptized " all the people/' and so had " made 
ready a people prepared for the Lord," when the time came for 
him to crown his ministry by the baptism of Jesus himself. The 
time that had elapsed from the commencement of his ministry to 
this event may be safely reckoned at six months, namely, the differ- 
ence between the ages of John and Jesus, assuming that the former, 
like the latter, began his ministry at the regular Levitical age 
of thirty. During this period, his predictions of the Messiah 
grew more and more frequent : the " herald " became more dis- 
tinctly the " evangelist." 

At length Jesus, being about the age of thirty, came forth 
from his retirement at Nazareth and travelled to the 
Jordan, where John was then baptizing, to submit himself to the 
initiatory rite. There is something, at first sight, almost unaccount- 
able in this step. That he who " knew no sin" should thus seem to 
" arise and wash away his sins ;" that he who truly " needed no 
repentance," and was himself the Spiritual King, should accept at 
the hands of the preacher of repentance the rite of initiation into his 
own kingdom ! And so it seemed to John, who at first opposed his 
wish, exclaiming, " I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest 
thou to me?" The answer solves the mystery : — " Suffer it now" — 
in this present dispensation of my humiliation — "for thus it becometh 
us to fulfil all righteousness" He had come in the " likeness of sinful 
flesh," though it was a likeness only. " He was made sin for us," 
though in himself he " knew no sin." And he felt it to be as much 
his part to " condemn sin in the flesh," by renouncing it through the 
water of baptism, as by expiating it by his blood upon the cross; and 
so he set the example of entrance into his kingdom by the path of 
meek repentance, and of solemn obligation to a holy life. His con- 
science, free from all sense of guilt, must have felt it hard to descend 
into the water; but this first suffering had its reward in the glory 
that at once followed. This first act of submission to his Father's 
will called forth the first public tokens of his Father's acceptance of 
the sacrifice, and approving love toward himself. As he stepped 
past the water's edge, he knelt down to pray, devoting his whole 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 



591 



being to the work to which he had been consecrated by his baptism. 
At that moment a double sign was vouchsafed from heaven to the 
eyes and ears of the multitude, among whom Jesus had hitherto 
appeared as one of themselves. The sky was seen to open, and the 
Spirit of God descended upon him in a bodily shape, like a dove, 
and a voice was heard from heaven, saying, " Thou art my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased." The former act was another 
baptism, which exceeded the commission of John, endowing Jesus 
with the power of God, and given to him to be conferred in turn 
upon his disciples ; while the voice was that direct attestation from 
God himself which the Jewish teachers recognized by the name of 
the Bath-Col (daughter of the voice), and which was twice again 
repeated in the course of his ministry. 

Though he had thus fulfilled the main object of his ministry, 
which was "that Christ 
should be made manifest 
to Israel," John still con- 
tinued the work of pre- 
paring the people to receive 
him. Meanwhile Jesus 
was withdrawn again from 
the thousands of eyes that 
were watching w T hat would 
follow, to undergo that 
trial which was to fit 
him to sympathize with 
his tempted brethren. 

" Though he were a Son," as he had just been proclaimed from 
heaven, " yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered ; 
and being thus made perfect, he became the author of eternal salva- 
tion unto all them that obey him." It was immediately after his 
baptism, by the very first impulse of the Spirit which had then 
descended on him, that Jesus was driven into the wilderness, to 
undergo in solitude not only the great moral trial of his humanity, 
but the second great trial of human nature itself. The forty days 
spent by our Saviour in the wilderness bear a striking resemblance to 
the forty days' retirement of Moses on Mount Sinai, and the forty 
days spent by Elijah at Horeb ; and this likeness between the Media- 
tor of the New Covenant and the Mediator and Reformer of the Old 
becomes the more significant from the subsequent appearance of Moses 
and Elijah with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. The parallel 




LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 



592 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

must not, however, be pressed to the inference that our Saviour was 
led so far as the peninsula of Sinai ; the scene of his temptation was 
probably in the wilderness of Judaea, the wild beasts of which are 
mentioned bv St. Mark. 

It is impossible for us to form a complete conception of our Lord's 
temptation, since temptation with us is always associated with the 
possibility of sin, whereas Christ's trial was that of one who could 
not possibly have fallen. But while we must be content with an 
incomplete conception, we must avoid the wrong conceptions that are 
often substituted for it. 

The three temptations are addressed to the three forms in which 
the disease of sin makes its appearance on the soul — to the solace of 
sense, and the love of praise, and the desire of gain. But there is 
one element common to them all — they are attempts to call up a wil- 
ful and wayward spirit in contrast to a patient self-denying one. 

In the first temptation the Redeemer is an-hungered, and when 
the devil bids him, if he be the Son of God, command that the stones 
may be made bread, there would seem to be no great sin in this use 
of divine power to overcome the pressing human want. Our Lord's 
answer is required to show us where the essence of the temptation lay. 
He takes the words of Moses to the children of Israel, which mean, 
not that men must dispense with bread, and feed only on the study of 
the divine word, but that our meat and drink, our food and raiment, 
are all the work of the creating hand of God ; and that a sense of 
dependence on God is the duty of man. He tells the tempter that as 
the sons of Israel, standing in the wilderness, were forced to humble 
themselves and to wait upon the hand of God for the bread from 
heaven which he gave them, so the Son of Man, fainting in the 
wilderness from hunger, will be humble, and will wait upon his 
Father in heaven for the word that shall bring him food, and will not 
be hasty to deliver himself from that dependent state, but will wait 
patiently for the gifts of his goodness. 

In the second temptation, it is not probable that they left the 
wilderness, but that Satan was allowed to suggest to our Lord's mind 
the place and the marvel that could be wrought there. They stood, 
as has been suggested, on the lofty porch that overhung the valley of 
Kedron, where the steep side of the valley was added to the height 
of the Temple, and made a depth that the eye could scarcely have 
borne to look down upon. " Cast thyself down " — perform in the 
Holy City, in a public place, a wonder that will at once make all 
men confess that none but the Son of God could perform it. A 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 593 

passage from the 91st Psalm is quoted to give a color to the 
argument. Our Lord replies by an allusion to another text, that 
carries us back again to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness : 
"Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as. ye tempted him in 
Massah." Their conduct is more fully described by the Psalmist as 
a tempting of God : " They tempted God in their heart by asking 
meat for their lust; yea, they spake against God: they said, Can 
God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold he smote the rock 
that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he 
give bread also? Can he provide flesh for his people?" Just 
parallel was the temptation here. God has protected thee so far, 
brought thee up, put his seal upon thee by manifest proofs of his 
favor. Can he do this also ? Can he send the angels to buoy thee 
up in thy descent? Can he make the air thick to sustain, and the 
earth soft to receive thee ? The appropriate answer is, " Thou shalt 
not tempt the Lord thy God." 

In the third temptation it is not asserted that there is any moun- 
tain from which the eyes of common men can see the world and its 
kingdoms at once displayed ; it was with the mental vision of One 
who knew all things that these kingdoms and their glory were seen. 
And Satan has now begun to discover, if he knew not from the begin- 
ning, that One is here who can become the King over them all. He 
says, "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and 
worship me." In St. Luke the words are fuller : "All this power 
will I give thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, 
and to whomsoever I will I give it :" but these words are the lie of 
the tempter, which he uses to mislead. " Thou art come to be great 
— to be a king on the earth ; but I am strong, and will resist thee. 
Thy followers shall be imprisoned and slain ; some of them shall fall 
away through fear ; others shall forsake thy cause, loving this present 
world. Cast in thy lot with me ; let thy kingdom be an earthly- 
kingdom, only the greatest of all — a kingdom such as the Jews seek 
to see established on the throne of David. Worship me by living as 
the children of this world live, and so honoring me in thy life : then 
all shall be thine." The Lord knows that the tempter is right in 
foretelling such trials to him ; but, though clouds and darkness hang 
over the path of his ministry, he must work the work of him that 
sent him, and not another work : he must worship God and none 
other. " Get thee hence, Satan ; for it is written, Thou shalt worship 
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." As regards the 
order of the temptations, there are internal marks that the account 
38 



594 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of St. Matthew assigns them their historical order : St. Luke trans- 
poses the two last, for which various reasons are suggested by com- 
mentators. 

The ministry of angels to Jesus, at the close of the temptation, is 
the first example (unless we include the cases before his birth) of a 
feature in his career on which the Apostle Paul lays stress, and in 
which we see his command of the world of spirits — a command which 
he has ever used on behalf of his tempted people, sending forth his 
" spirit-servants " to minister to the heirs of salvation. Nor should 
we omit to notice that Satan departed from him only "for a season. " 
The great decisive battle of obedience to God and resistance to sin 
had been gained ; but the enemy would not confess a final defeat. 
This was pre-eminently the temptation; but our Lord himself de- 
scribed his course as a scene of continued temptation ; and he had yet 
to secure the victory by that last agony in which " the prince of the 
world came, but still found nothing in him." And so with his people, 
" they that endure to the end shall be saved." 

It would seem that the baptism of Jesus, and his mysterious disap- 
pearance, had brought the alarm of the rulers at Jerusalem to a 
climax; and they sent priests and Levites to require John to tell 
them plainly who he was. They appear to have been perplexed be- 
tween his mission and that of the coming " greater one," who had 
been just shown and then withdrawn. To the successive inquiries — 
"Art thou the Christ?" "Art thou Elias?" "Art thou that pro- 
phet?" — one greater even than Elias, whom the Jews expected to 
be raised again from the dead as the forerunner of the Messiah — he 
gave a direct negative, again repeating the description of his work in 
the words of Isaiah. 

At length there came a day, when he was able to reply to their 
challenge of his right to baptize at all, if he had none of these claims, 
by telling them of One then standing among them y though they knew 
him not, as whose forerunner he himsalf baptized with water unto 
repentance. For Jesus had now returned from the scene of his temp- 
tation; and, on the following day, John seized an opportunity to 
point him out in those memorable words, which describe him as the 
substance of the types of the law, and the one true sacrifice for the 
salvation of all the world — "Behold the Lamb of God, ichich 
taketh away the sin of the world!" This, he added, was the Sox OF 
God, who had been marked by the descent of the Spirit, who should 
confer on them the higher baptism of the Holy Ghost, and whose 
revelation to Israel was the one object of his own ministry. This 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 595 

open proclamation of the Christ had no immediate and visible result. 
The astonished people probably went away to meditate on all these 
wonders, while the process of conversion to Christ began, in God's 
own quiet course, with a few individuals, who had been prepared to 
come to him by John's teaching. 

It was on the following day that John, surprised perhaps 
that his words of yesterday had led to no greater result, re- 
peated them in a more private way to two of his disciples, as they 
saw Jesus walking by them. It was soon after the hour of the even- 
ing sacrifice, that they heard him say, for the second time, " Behold 
the Lamb of God ;" and this time the words came to them with the 
power of the Spirit. They followed Jesus, and became the two first 
of his disciples. And here we have the record of the very first of 
" those gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth " in the 
character of the Teacher and Saviour of his people. Turning round, 
and seeing them following, not daring to overtake and address him, 
he said, " What seek ye ?" His first words were an unbounded en- 
couragement to prayer. Their effect shows that they were uttered 
with that mingled kindness and authority which could proceed from 
no other lips ; for, at once addressing him by the title of a Jewish 
teacher, they asked to be admitted to his private converse : " Rabbi ! 
(Master) where dwellest thou ?" He invited them to his abode, and 
they spent the rest of the day in hearing words which convinced 
them that he was the Messiah, and which led one of them, Andrew, 
to seek his own brother Simon that same evening, and bring him to 
Jesus. Simon was received with a salutation which proved that 
Jesus already knew him, and with a new surname, at once descriptive 
of his character, and symbolical of the truth, that Christ is the rock 
on which his Church is founded. This name was, in the vernacular, 
Cephas, answering to the Greek Peter, and signifying a stone or 
rock. That the other of the two first disciples of our Lord was John, 
can scarcely admit of question. The modest reserve, which keeps 
back his own name, is consistent with his usual manner of naming 
himself as "that other disciple," " the disciple whom Jesus loved." 
The naming of the other earliest disciples, but not of John, combined 
with the internal evidence of his presence at the scenes related in the 
first few chapters of his Gospel, puts the matter beyond a question. 
This early introduction to our Saviour places him at once in that 
position of a constant and close companion, which gives so remark- 
able a character to his Gospel. Nor can we refrain from imagining 
how, while Andrew had no sooner heard enough from Jesus to work 



596 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

conviction in his mind, he hastened to seek his brother with the news, 
" We have found the Messiah !" — John remained sitting at the Sa- 
viour's feet, and drinking in the first mysteries of his kingdom. Thus 
was that kingdom inaugurated upon earth, by the secret converse of 
Jesus with three fishermen, who had come to, be baptized by John, in 
some rude hut reared on the banks of Jordan ; but those three already 
formed the Christian Church. 

It is very characteristic of the gradual course of Christ's revelation, 
that he withdrew on the next day, from the crowds assembled about 
John, to Galilee. But first he called another disciple, Philip, a man 
of Bethsaida, the native place of Andrew and Peter. Philip, like 
Andrew, sought to share the blessing with a friend. This was Na- 
thanael, of Cana in Galilee, the same who is afterward called Bar- 
tholomew, whose zeal for the purity of Judaism, unlike that of the 
mere formalists, was adorned by deep and sincere devotion. His 
celebrated objection — " Can any good come out of Nazareth ?" — be- 
trayed the prejudice even of a Galilean against the despised village of 
Christ; but all such feelings vanished at once, when Jesus not only 
accosted him as " an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile," 
but assured Nathanael that he had seen him in his wonted place of 
secret prayer, under the shade of a fig-tree, where no human eye could 
see him. This proof of Christ's omniscience called forth a confession 
which forms a climax to those made by the other disciples. Andrew 
and his companion had acknowledged him as their Master, and the 
former had told Peter that they had found the Christ; Philip had 
recognized in Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph, him who had been 
foretold by 3Ioses and the prophets; and now Nathanael gives him the 
full titles of the Messiah : " Rabbi ! Thou art the Son of God ! Thou 
art the King of Israel ! " His faith w r as rewarded by the promise of 
higher exhibitions of Christ's glory in the ministry of the angels 
from heaven. 

The next day but one after the calling of Nathanael, a 
marriage-feast was held at Cana. There appears to have 
been a twofold reason for our Saviour's presence. His mother was 
one of the guests ; and it seems probable that Mary had gone from 
Nazareth, while Jesus went direct to Cana, at the invitation of 
Nathanael, who was a native of that place, and who would naturally 
invite his friend Philip, together with his fellow-townsmen Peter and 
Andrew, and their friend, the remaining and unnamed disciple. That 
all were present is clearly implied in the statement, " Both Jesus was 
called, and his disciples, to the marriage ;" and this is most important 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 



59? 



as establishing the fact, that our Saviour's first miracle was wrought 
in the presence of these " witnesses chosen before," and especially of 
John, who alone of the four evangelists records the incident. 

This unexpected influx of guests, though welcomed with the hospi- 
tality of the East, entailed serious inconvenience on the bridegroom's 
limited resources; for the family seems to have been of the same 
lowly station as our Lord's. The wine, which it had doubtless re- 
quired an effort to provide, ran short. Mary, who now appears again, 
for the first time since those early events, all of which she had " kept 
in her heart" and "pondered in her mind," thought she saw the 
opportunity to call forth the divine power of her Son. That this was 
involved in her words, " They have no wine " (and not, as some say, 
a hint of the propriety of his withdrawing, with his disciples, which, 
by the bye, would have been an insult to the host), seems clear from 
his reply, " Woman, what have I to do with thee ? Mine hour is 
not yet come !" The original 
conveys nothing of bluntness 
by the first word, the same 
by which Jesus addressed his 
mother in the very climax of 
his tenderness upon the cross ; 
but yet the choice of it, in- 
stead of " Mother," is a sign 
of that new relation which 
appears throughout the whole 
scene. It is hard to treat 

the subject with plainness and yet with reverence ; but the difficulty 
is one of expression rather than of understanding. The man Jesus 
had, in childhood and youth, been subject to his parents ; but such 
subjection was no longer becoming to Jesus the Christ of God. There 
seems to have been, in the hint of Mary, something of that error 
which is carried to extremity by the Mariolaters, when they pray the 
Virgin to command her Son to give them their wishes. It was need- 
ful that our Saviour should correct this error, which affected the 
motive, the object, and the time for the exercise of his miraculous 
power. " What is it to me and thee ? Mine hour is not yet come" — is, 
in effect, a declaration that he must not use his divine powers at the 
promptings even of a parent, nor for any private object, nor till the fit 
season, of which the Spirit within him was sole judge. But what is 
the " hour " that he speaks of as " not yet come ?" The special use 
of this phrase elsewhere, for the great crisis of his work, is apt to 




FOUNTAIN OF CANA. 



593 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

make us forget that its primary sense is more general, " My season or 
opportunity is not yet come." But that interpretation is too narrow, 
which makes it refer to the wine not being yet exhausted. It is a 
rebuke of the impatience, which would not wait his time, though fol- 
lowed by the condescension of performing the miracle asked for, as 
the first example of those which should follow in due season. Mary 
received the rebuke without discouragement; and, as the friend of 
the family, she commands the servants to hold themselves at his 
disposal. 

The details of the miracle are too familiar to need relation; but we 
must not omit to notice the points in which it forms a type of all 
Christ's miracles : — " This did Jesus, as the beginning of his miracles ;" 
not only the first in time, but the inauguration of the great principle 
of all his miracles, at once to "make manifest his glory" and to cause 
"his disciples to believe on him." We may observe, in passing, that 
these words dispose, once for all, of the many childish legends about 
our Lord's miracles as a child. 

Xor must we fail to notice that our Saviour made this first public 
" manifestation of his glory " while he was satisfying the claims of 
social duty, and in this respect also "made like unto his brethren." 
We have seen him in the bosom of the familv, now we behold him 
in the circle of society, blessing both, and fulfilling the laws of both, 
even the law of innocent pleasure ; and interposing, by his divine 
power at a moment of pressure, to supply a want that was not one of 
the mere necessaries of life. "The Son of Man came eating and 
drinking." 

In the fact that his first feast was a marriage feast, we see him sanc- 
tifying the divine ordinance of marriage, nay, even the festivities con- 
nected with it. This marked sanction, thus early in his course, may 
be regarded as a substitute for his own literal conformitv to his 
brethren in the marriage state. It exhibited his perfect sympathy 
with a condition of life which his peculiar lot forbade his accepting : 
his only bride is the whole Church, which shares his love and life 
in glory ; but no mortal bosom might divide the burden of his hu- 
miliation upon earth. 

The marriage at Cana concludes what may be called the more pri- 
vate opening of our Saviour's ministry. " He came unto his own," 
— first in the narrow circle of the few friends connected with his 
family ; and all that follows justifies our applying to this narrow 
circle the statement, that "his own received him not;" and St. John 
expressly states that "neither did his brethren believe on him," when 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 



599 




ANCIENT BANQUET. 



they taunted him with the comparative privacy of his miracles. 
Even his mother's, faith seems thus far to have had in it more of 
nature than of grace ; and, for the rest, his five disciples were his only 
converts. With them, and his mother, and his brethren, he retired 
to Capernaum, on the west shore of the Lake of Galilee, a city which 
he more than once selected for his residence in preference to Nazareth. 
This abode of the first disciples with Jesus at Capernaum marks the 
intimate personal nature of their connection with him, and implies 
the incessant opportunities which that intercourse afforded for their 
learning of him the truths of which they were to be witnesses. It 
must not be confounded with that first public appearance at Caper- 
naum which succeeds his baptism in the order of the first three Evan- 
gelists. "They continued there not many days ;" for a reason which 
presently appears; "the Jews' passover was at hand." This notice 
fixes the marriage at Cana to a time not long before the Passover ; 
an epoch from which we can reckon back, within pretty narrow limits 
of error, to our Saviour's temptation and his baptism, making in all 
about three months from the time when "he began to be about thirty 
years of age." 



600 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

FIRST YEAR OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY — FROM HIS FIRST PASSOYER TO HIS SECOND 

YISIT TO JERUSALEM, PROBABLY AT THE PASSOYEB. 

[a. d. 27-28.] 

^jrHAT Christ should begin his public ministry at Jerusalem 
was equally in accordance with the fitness of the case, and 
with the expectations raised by prophecy : — " Jehovah, whom 
(^rp ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple" Xor was there 
any reason so suitable for his appearance there, as the Feast 
of Passover, which presented the most striking type of him, and at 
which the Jews were gathered, not only from all the land, but from 
the countries of the Dispersion. Hence the Passovers 
during our Saviour's ministry are most important epochs, 
and, indeed, they furnish the only general chronological data for its 
course. But we are met, in the outset, by the strange fact that, with 
one exception, these Passovers are mentioned only by St. John. All 
the Evangelists relate the events of that last great Passover, to which 
Jesus went up to suffer as the true Paschal Lamb. But, with this 
exception, the first three Evangelists confine their narrative to our 
Lord's ministry in Galilee, though not without incidental allusions to 
his visits to Judaea. Immediately after his baptism, they record the 
beginning of his ministry in Galilee; and the word "returned," in 
Matthew and Luke, might be taken for his first return from the 
banks of the Jordan, but for the note of time, and the motive of the 
journey, supplied by Matthew and Mark, " when Jesus had heard 
that John was cast into prison." This agrees with the beginning of 
St. John's fourth chapter, and interposes all the events recorded in 
his first three chapters. In the same way, the visits to Judaea men- 
tioned in John v. and vii. are passed over by the other Evangelists, 
who, however, imply, on various occasions, the not unfrequent 
exercise of Christ's ministry in Jerusalem* and Judaea. And this is 

* Scene of our Lord's Ministry. 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke record only our Lord's doings in Galilee ; if 
we put aside a few days before the Passion, we find that they never mention his 
visiting Jerusalem. John, on the other hand, while he records some acts in 
Galilee, devotes the chief part of his Gospel to the transactions in Judaea. But 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 601 

accounted for by two facts, which must never be lost sight of in 
studying the Gospels, that the first three Evangelists wrote from Gali- 
lean sources of information, and that the Gospel of St. John was sup- 
plemental to theirs. 

In these two facts we have the key to the diversities between the 



•when the supplemental character of John's Gospel is borne in mind, there is little 
difficulty in explaining this. The three Evangelists do not profess to give a 
chronology of the ministry, but rather a picture of it : notes of time are not fre- 
quent in their narrative. And as they chiefly confined themselves to Galilee, 
where the Redeemer's chief acts were done, they might naturally omit to mention 
the feasts, which, being passed by our Lord at Jerusalem, added nothing to the 
materials for his Galilean ministry. John, on the other hand, writing later, and 
giving an account of the Redeemer's life which is still less complete as a history 
(for more than one-half of the fourth Gospel is occupied with the last three 
months of the ministry, and seven chapters out of twenty-one are filled with the 
account of the few days of the Passion), vindicates his historical claim by sup- 
plying several precise notes of time. In the occurrences after the baptism of 
Jesus, days and even hours are specified (John i. 29, 35, 39, 43, ii. 1) ; the first 
miracle is mentioned, and the time at which it was wrought (John ii. 1-11). He 
mentions not only the Passover (John ii. 13-23 ; vi. 4 ; xiii. 1, and, perhaps, 
v. 1), but also the Feast of Tabernacles (John vii. 2) and of Dedication (John 
x. 22) : and thus it is ordered that the Evangelist who goes over the least part of 
the ground of our Lord's ministry is yet the same who fixes for us its duration, 
and enables us to arrange the facts of the rest more exactly in their historical 
places. It is true that the three Gospels record chiefly the occurrences in Galilee ; 
but there is evidence in them that miracles were wrought in Judaea. Frequent 
teaching in Jerusalem is implied in the Lord's lamentation over the lost city 
(Matt, xxiii. 37). The appearance in Galilee of Scribes and Pharisees and others 
from Jerusalem (Matt. iv. 25, xv. 1) would be best explained on the supposition 
that their enmity had been excited against him during visits to Jerusalem. The 
intimacy with the family of Lazarus (Luke x. 38), and the attachment of Joseph 
of Arimathea to the Lord (Matt, xxvii. 57), w 7 ould imply, most probably, 
frequent visits to Jerusalem. But why was Galilee chosen as the principal scene 
of the ministry ? The question is not easy to answer. The Prophet would re- 
sort to the Temple of God ; the King of the Jews would go to his own royal city ; 
the Teacher of the chosen people would preach in the midst of them. But their 
hostility prevented it. The Saviour, who, accepting all the infirmities of " the 
form of a servant," which he had taken, fled in his childhood to Egypt, betakes 
himself to Galilee to avoid Jewish hatred and machinations, and lays the founda- 
tions of his Church amid a people of impure and despised race. To Jerusalem he 
comes occasionall} r , to teach, and suffer persecution, and finally to die : "for it 
cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem " (Luke xiii. 33). It was upon 
the first outbreak of persecution against him that he left Judaea : " When Jesus 
had heard that John w r as cast into prison, he departed into Galilee " (Matt. iv. 12). 
And that this persecution aimed at him also we gather from St. John : " When, 
therefore, the Lord knew how that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and 
baptiz.ed more disciples than John ... he left Judaea and departed into Galilee " 
(John iv. 1-G). If the light of the Sun of Righteousness shone on the Jews 



602 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

first three Evangelists and the fourth, respecting both the scene and 
the duration of the public ministry of Christ. 

Returning to this first Passover of A. D. 27, the first, that is, in 
our Saviour's ministry, for he had doubtless gone up regularly to 
Jerusalem since the recorded visit at the age of twelve, we see him at 

henceforward from the far-off shores of the Galilean lake, it was because they 
had refused and abhorred that light. 

Duration op our Lord's Ministry. 

It is impossible to determine exactly from the Gospels the number of years 
during which the Redeemer exercised his ministry before the Passion ; but the 
doubt lies between two and three ; for the opinion, adopted from an interpreta- 
tion of Isaiah lxi. 2, by more than one of the ancients, that it lasted only one 
year, cannot be borne out (Euseb. iii. 24 ; Clem. Alex. Strom. 1 ; Origen, Princ. 
4, 5). The data are to be drawn from St. John. This Evangelist mentions six 
feasts, at five of which Jesus was present ; the Passover that followed his bap- 
tism (John ii. 13) ; " a feast of the Jews " (eoptrj without the article, John v. 1) ; 
a Passover during which Jesus remained in Galilee (John vi. 4) ; the Feast of 
Tabernacles to which the Lord went up privately (John vii. 2) ; the Feast of 
Dedication (John x. 22) ; and, lastly, the Feast of Passover, at which he suffered 
(John xii., xiii.). There are certainly three Passovers, and it is possible that "a 
feast" (John v. 1) may be a fourth. Upon this possibility the question turns. 
LUcke in his Commentary (vol ii. p. 1), in collecting with great research the 
various opinions on this point, is unable to arrive at any definite conclusion upon 
it, and leaves it unsolved. But if this feast is not a Passover, then no Passover 
is mentioned by John between the first (John ii. 13) and that which is spoken 
of in the sixth chapter ; and the time between those two must be assumed to be a 
single year only. Now, although the record of John of this period contains but 
few facts, yet when all the Evangelists are compared, the amount of labor com- 
pressed into this single year would be too much for its compass. The time 
during which Jesus was baptizing (by his disciples) near the Jordan was proba- 
bly considerable, and lasted till John's imprisonment (John iii. 22-36). The 
circuit round Galilee (Matt. iv. 23-25) was a missionary journey through a 
country of considerable population, and containing two hundred towns ; and this 
would occupy some time. But another such journey, of the most comprehensive 
kind, is undertaken in the same year (Luke viii. 1), in which he "went through- 
out every city and village." And a third circuit of the same kind, and equally 
general (Matt. ix. 35-38), would close the same year. Is it at all probable that 
Jesus, after spending a considerable time in Judaea, would be able to make three 
circuits of Galilee in the remainder of the year, preaching and doing wonders in 
the various places to which he came ? This would be more likely if the journeys 
were hurried and partial ; but all three are spoken of as though they were the 
very opposite. It is, to say the least, easier to suppose that the "feast" (John 
v. 1) was a Passover, dividing the time into two, and throwing two of these 
circuits into the second year of the ministry ; provided there be nothing to make 
this interpretation improbable in itself. The words are, "After this there was a 
feast of the Jews ; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." These two facts are meant 
as cause and effect ; the feast caused the visit. If so, it was probably one of the 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY 603 

once exercising the highest authority of a prophet and a reformer, by 
cleansing the Temple. The selfish spirit which had prevailed since 
the Captivity, in place of the open idolatries of earlier times, had 
made the very services of the sanctuary the occasion for profaning it. 
Sheep and oxen and doves were sold within the sacred precincts for 
the sacrifices, and money-changers traded there upon the convenience 
of those who came to pay the half-shekel tax for divine worship. 
Jesus drove them from the temple with an authority of which his 
"scourge of small cords" was but the sign. The indignation with 
which he overthrew the tables of the money-changers forms a marked 
contrast to his gentler command to the sellers of doves to " take these 
things hence." Still more striking is the contrast between his admo- 
nition, " Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise," and 
his denunciation of the same conduct on his last visit to the temple : 
— " It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all 
nations ; but ye have made it a den of thieves" Those critics, who 

three feasts at which the Jews were expected to appear before God at Jerusalem.* 
Was it the Passover, the Pentecost, or the Feast of Tabernacles ? In the pre- 
ceding chapter the Passover has been spoken of as "the feast" (ver. 45) ; and if 
another feast were meant here the name of it would have been added, as in 
vii. 2, x. 22. The omission of the article is not decisive, for it occurs in other 
cases where the Passover is certainly intended (Matt, xxvii. 15 ; Mark xv. 6) ; 
nor is it clear that the Passover was called the feast, as the most eminent, 
although the Feast of Tabernacles was sometimes so described. All that the 
omission could prove would be that the Evangelist did not think it needful to 
describe the feast more precisely. The words in John iv. 35, " There are yet 
four months and then cometh harvest," would agree with this, for the barley- 
harvest began on the 16th Nisan, and reckoning back four months would bring 
this conversation to the beginning of December, i: e., the middle of Kisleu. If 
it be granted that our Lord is here merely quoting a common form of speech 
(Alford), still it is more likely that he would use one appropriate to the time at 
which he was speaking. And if these words were uttered in December, the next 
of the three great feasts occurring would be the Passover. The shortness of the 
interval between v. 1 and vi. 4 would afford an objection, if it were not for the 
scantiness of historical details in the early part of the ministry in St. John : from 
the other Evangelists it appears that two great journeys might have to be in- 
cluded between these verses. Upon the whole, though there is nothing that 
amounts to proof, it is probable that there were four Passovers, and consequently 
that our Lord's ministry lasted somewhat more than three years, the "beginning 
of miracles" (John ii.) having been wrought before the first Passover. On 
data of calculation that have already been mentioned, the year of the first of 
these Passovers was A. u. c. 780 (a. d. 27), and the baptism of our Lord took 
place either in the beginning of that year or the end of the year preceding. The 
ministry of John the Baptist began in a. u. c. 779 (a. d. 26). 

* This is an argument against the somewhat arbitrary hypothesis that it was the Feast of Purim. 



604 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

suppose the two narratives to be a confused account of one event, are 
insensible to the transition, which the renewed and confirmed selfish- 
ness of the offenders forced upon our Saviour, from the reformer 
urging amendment, to the judge passing a final condemnation. 

His proceedings were watched by his disciples and the Jews with 
equal astonishment. The former, reminded of the words of one of 
those Psalms which most clearly referred to the Messiah, beheld a 
new proof of his divine authority.* The Jews were sensible of the 
same inference, but they resisted its admission. Their very demand 
for a sign of his authority proved that they understood the claim. 
His answer looked forward, at this very commencement of his course, 
to its highest consummation, while it rebuked them more keenly than 
ever by predicting their share in the end. This was the first occasion 
on which the Jews made the demand, which they so often repeated, 
not of evidence to justify belief — this was abundantly supplied by the 
very spirit of his proceedings, as well as by the miracles which w r e 
are presently told that he performed — but of a supernatural sign to 
compel belief; that foolish demand which is made in every age by 
hearts hardened against moral evidence, and which equally fails to 
convince them. Jesus replied, as on other occasions, by refusing the 
demand made in a spirit of defiance, but at the same time intimating 
that the sign would one day be given, and that to their confusion. 
For this end their evil spirit toward him was already preparing. 
They who demanded to know his authority for rebuking their pro- 
fanation of God's house would be carried on by that evil spirit, not 
only to courses involving the destruction of that house, but to the 
destruction of the true temple of which that was but the shrine, the 
" house not made with hands," which formed in his person the 
dwelling-place of God. And when their rage had achieved that 
triumph, he would give them the clearest sign of his authority, by 
raising up again in three days that edifice, whose glory infinitely sur- 
passed the forty years' work of Herod on Mount Zion. " He spake 
of the temple of his body." His words had an apparent sense, which 
was all that their carnal minds could see at present; and even this 
they wilfully perverted by the alteration of one word, in order to 
make out a charge of blasphemy against him. He said, "Destroy 
this temple" — in the tone of indignant remonstrance, like, "Fill ye 
up the measure of your fathers." And the very means they used to 
fulfil his words was by suborning false witnesses to make him say, 

* Ps. lxix. 9. See the whole Psalm for its pre-eminently Messianic character. 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 605 

"I will destroy it." Hidden beneath this apparent sense, was not 
only the prediction of the destruction of the temple by the Romans, 
as the only cure for the pollutions they had brought upon it; but the 
deeper spiritual prophecy of his own death and resurrection, the end 
of which would be the establishment of the true temple in heaven ; 
where the seer of Patmos beheld no visible temple, " for the Lord 
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." Even his disci- 
ples did not perceive this meaning till after his resurrection. " They 
remembered," as soon as they saw his zeal for his Father's house, the 
Scripture which marked this as a character of the Christ ; but it 
needed reflection after the event, to call to their remembrance the 
true import of his life and sayings ; and it is that remembrance, re- 
called by the Holy Spirit, that St. John has recorded for our learning. 
It is another indication of the progressive character of their faith, that 
only then " did they believe the Scripture, and the word which Jesus 
had said." 

These deeds of authority, and the miracles which Jesus performed 
at the Passover, gained him for the first time many converts — con- 
verts at least in outward profession. But here we meet with one of 
the most striking and affecting records in his whole history. " Many 
believed (or trusted) in his name ; but Jesus did not trust himself to 
them." It is difficult to express the antithesis involved in the repeti- 
tion of the word, which our version wholly loses. But it is not 
difficult to read the lesson of the reserve with which Christ treated 
these first converts of his public ministry. A reason is given, which 
both explains his conduct and testifies to his omniscient power of 
discerning the hearts of men. He saw the elements of instability in 
some, and of hypocrisy and, perhaps, even treachery in others, which 
would surely bring disgrace on his cause; and he would not own 
them, or attach himself to them, in such a manner as to imperil that 
cause through them. Probably these converts, in their carnal and 
selfish zeal, began with the mistake which was afterward repeated by 
so many of his followers, by looking for an independent kingdom ; 
and he would not commit himself to them as king of the Jews. 

But there were a few in whom he did place confidence. The type 
of these is the ruler Nicodemus, a man by no means free from the 
prejudices of his nation and his order, but showing the first elements 
of true faith in his hearty recognition of the divine authority attested 
by the miracles of Christ. This conviction, which many of his fellow- 
rulers shared, he had the honesty to avow : — " Rabbi, we know that 
thou art a teacher sent from God ;" and, though there was something 



606 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of proud reserve, as well as of moral cowardice, in the manner of his 
coming to Christ, his sincerity contrasted very favorably with the 
hollow demonstrations which Jesus had rejected. To him the Lord 
unfolded for the first time the deepest mysteries of his kingdom : the 
need of regeneration to enter it ; the death of the Son of Man and 
only-begotten Son of God for the salvation of all who should believe 
in him ; and the condemnation of the world for its wilful unbelief. 
In this discourse the Three Persons of the Trinity are all revealed in 
their working for man's redemption : the Father loving the world so 
as even to give his Son to die for man ; the Son coming down from 
heaven to be lifted up on the cross, and ascending to heaven again ; 
and the Spirit renewing the hearts of those who should enter the 
kingdom of heaven. The detailed exposition of our Lord's discourses 
however, does not fall within the plan of this work. 

Our Lord's discernment of the premature and unstable professions 
of the many who believed on him would be a sufficient reason for his 
retirement from Jerusalem to the country districts of Judaea, where 
he gradually, but surely, gathered converts, who were baptized, not 
by himself, but by his disciples. His converts soon exceeded those of 
John, who still continued to baptize, and who was now at iEnon, 
near Salim, a spot which numerous streamlets make very convenient 
for an encampment. The people were now perplexed by something 
like an appearance of rivalry between the two new teachers ; and one 
of the Jews, who had engaged in a controversy upon purifying with 
John's disciples, came to him to ask, seemingly in a somewhat taunt- 
ing spirit, how it was that he, to whom he had borne witness near the 
Jordan, w T as apparently superseding him in his ministry. John took 
the occasion to bear to Christ a final testimony, no less remarkable for 
its explicit statements of Gospel truth than for its profound humility 
and self-renunciation. Reminding both parties to the controversy 
that he had always insisted on the superiority of Christ to himself, as 
being the very purpose of his mission, he marks this as the divinely 
appointed order : — " He must increase, I must decrease." And to this 
law he not merely submits, but derives from it unbounded satisfaction. 
Likening himself to the bridegroom's friend (or paranymph) at a wed- 
ding, rejoicing at the bridegroom's voice, while Christ rejoiced over 
his pure spouse, the Church about to be redeemed, he declares, " This 
my joy therefore is fulfilled." Though f himself destined to remain 
outside of the Christian Church, he concludes his testimony by point- 
ing to his disciples and all his hearers the way within it. The limits 
of his own mission, strictly defined from the first, were now reached j 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 607 

and he sends them, for the measureless gifts of God's Spirit, to Him 
who had come from heaven and was above all, promising everlasting 
life if they believed on the Son, and denouncing the abiding wrath of 
God on unbelievers. 

Having thus stood faithful against the greatest temptation, probably, 
that ever asailed a mere man, the same temptation to which an angel 
had yielded, of rivalry with the Son of God, John could carry a good 
conscience into the prison to which he was soon afterward consigned. 
Thus far we have only seen John preaching and baptizing in the wil- 
derness and near the Jordan ; but it would seem that, as he advanced 
up the river into Galilee, the interest which Herod Antipas always 
retained in the Jewish religion led him to wish to hear the prophet. 
John appeared before him in a guise unlike the delicate attire of the 
courtier, with his wild Nazarite locks, and his prophet's mantle of 
camel's-hair, such as Elijah had when he showed himself to Ahab. 
In the court, as in the wilderness, he went straight to the object of his 
mission, repentance and reformation from positive sin. Herod had 
married Herodias, the self-divorced wife of his half-brother Philip ; 
and, regardless alike of the king's favor and the woman's vengeance, 
he said, " It is not lawful for thee to have her !" For this offence, 
Herod, instigated by Herodias, and casting to the winds all the better 
feelings that had led him to send for John, added to all the crimes 
which he had had such an opportunity to renounce, that of shutting 
up John in prison. How reluctant he was to proceed further, both 
from respect for John and fear of the people, who held the Baptist 
for a prophet, and how his conscience troubled him for this step, we 
shall soon see. 

Meanwhile the Pharisees, who may be supposed to have aided 
Herodias in exciting her husband against John, prepared to attack 
Jesus in his turn, for they had been alarmed by hearing that he made 
and baptized more disciples than John. Jesus heard of their plots 
and of John's imprisonment about the same time; and he resolved to 
remove from Judaea into Galilee. This may seem a strange step, 
considering that it was Herod who had imprisoned John. But our 
Lord's real danger was from the Jews ; and in the retired district 
round the Lake of Galilee, he would be safe from Herod till he gave 
him some personal offence. 

The route which Christ followed is particularly marked by John : 
" He must needs go through Samaria," that is, the district, not the 
city. It is by no means to be assumed that this was just the natural 
route. Even from Jerusalem, travellers often followed the route up 



608 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



the Jordan, to avoid contact with the hated Samaritans ; and the ap- 
pearance of a Jewish traveller at Jacob's well was unusual enough to 
cause surprise. But from our Lord's starting-point, on the Jordan 
and apparently rather high up its course, the valley of the river was 
much the nearest road to the Lake of Galilee ; and he went out of his 
way when he turned to the left through a pass leading into the valley 
of Shechem. Hence St. John's use of that " must" the force of which 
we had just now to notice. It marks the order in which our Saviour's 
public mission was fulfilled. Driven from Jerusalem and Judaea, he 
repaired to the more ancient sanctuary of Israel, where Abraham, 
Jacob, and Joshua had set up the worship of Johovah. Sitting by 
the well which tradition cherished as the gift of Jacob, in the valley 
between mounts Gerizim and Ebal, he expounded to a degraded woman 
of the half-heathen people of Sychar, who yet boasted to be the true 

children of the patriarchs, his 
own great gift of living water 
in the heart, and the spiritual 
worship which should super- 
sede that both of Jerusalem and 
Gerizim ; and her eagerness to 
impart the news to her fellow- 
townsmen brought to him disci- 
ples, who at once received him 
with that spiritual faith in his 
true mission which the Jews had 
wanted : " We have heard him 
ourselves, and know that this is 
indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." 

Having stayed two days at Sychar, Jesus proceeded into Galilee. 
"For Jesus himself testified," says St. John, "that a prophet hath no 
honor in his own country." Whatever may be the true meaning of 
this saying, it must at least be rescued from that degraded sense in 
which it is so often quoted, as if it were the just complaint of disap- 
pointed pride. It was certainly not uttered in this spirit by Him who 
said, " I receive not honor from men." We think of worldly honor, 
where our Saviour spoke of that acceptance of his mission, which 
alone is true honor to a prophet of God. On his first arrival in Galilee,' 
this honor seemed to be paid to him ; for the report of his miracles at 
Jerusalem, brought by the Galileans who had gone up to the Pass- 
over, secured him a favorable reception ; but it was only in appear- 
ance. His marked rejection at his own city of Nazareth, soon proved 




THE W03IAN OF SAMARIA. 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 609 

that, whether the first application of the words just quoted be to Jeru- 
salem or to Galilee, they were true alike of both. They were, in fact, 
uttered by our Saviour as the enunciation of a great general principle, 
and one much higher than the worldly maxim, that familiarity breeds 
contempt. The saying was a sorrowful statement of the truth, that 
they to whom the Gospel is brought nearest are the least ready to re- 
ceive it ; that the prophet is rejected, even where he ought to be first 
accepted, "in his own country," where he is best known, as Jesus 
was already known in Galilee by his miracle in Cana, nay, as he else- 
where adds, " in his own house." 

This question of interpretation is closely connected with another, 
which involves one of the greatest difficulties of the Gospel Harmony : 
— Did our Saviour, upon this return from his first Passover, at once 
commence his public ministry in Galilee, or did he spend another 
period in comparative privacy? The former seems the natural infer- 
ence from the first three Gospels ; though it is equally true that, 
taken alone, they would suggest the still earlier date, immediately 
upon Christ's baptism. On the other hand, St. John seems to imply 
that the healing of the nobleman's son was the only great incident of 
this second visit of Jesus to Galilee ; but the supplemental character 
of his Gospel makes it unsafe to argue from his silence, nor are the 
words " after this," at the beginning of chap v., a mark of immedi- 
ate sequence. If the feast of John v. 1 be a Passover, it is almost 
necessary to place our Lord's first circuit before it ; because we can 
hardly suppose a whole year to have been occupied by the events of 
John iii. and iv., nor does it seem possible to admit the necessary 
inference, that two full years Of our Lord's ministry passed before 
he chose his Apostles. If the feast of John v. 1 be the Feast of 
Tabernacles, we have half a year for those events, and a year and a 
half for our Lord's ministry in Galilee, up to his last Passover. The 
question seems incapable of positive decision ; but the balance of pro- 
bability appears to point to the order indicated above. 

On entering Galilee from Samaria, Jesus went to Cana, 
led apparently by the same connection which had before 
caused his presence at the marriage there. His return came to the 
ears of a courtier of Herod Antipas, whose son was at the point of 
death with a fever. The manner of the courtier's coming to Christ 
illustrates the spirit in which "the Galileans received him." There 
seems to have been an expectation that he would be lavish of his 
miracles for the benefit of his own countrymen, with very little 
thought of their higher purpose. The courtier appears to have come, 
39 



610 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

like Naaman to Elisha, thinking that his visit was an honor to the 
prophet, who would doubtless go back with him at once. The plural 
form of our Lord's rebuke — " Except ye see signs and wonders, ye 
will not believe/' — proves it to have been meant for the Galileans in 
general. They had long known him ; his first miracle had been per- 
formed at this very town, and they had seen what he had done at 
Jerusalem ; and the evidence of his mission was complete. But they 
were heedless of its real object, and seemed to think they had a right 
to any satisfaction of their curiosity. The courtier was too intent on 
his own distress to have patience for the lesson ; but though there was 
impatience, there was also earnest faith, in his rejoinder, — " Sir, come 
down ere my child die." This mixed state of mind our Lord treated 
with as much wisdom as compassion. Instead of going down with 
the courtier to Capernaum, he tells him to " go his way," but with 
the assurance that " his child lived." That the courtier began to 
understand the lesson of submission as well as faith, appears from 
the leisurely mode of his return. It was about noon when the con- 
versation took place ; and the moderate journey from Cana to Caper- 
naum could have been accomplished the same evening. But, in 
spite of the father's impatience, he stays to rest his servants and 
horses ; and when, on the following day, he is met with the joyful 
tidings, " Thy son liveth," his first question proves that he was pre- 
pared for the event itself, and only anxious to connect it with the 
Saviour's word ; " he inquired of them the hour when he began to 
amend." The answer sets the seal to the decisive evidence of the 
miracle, in which, as compared with the first miracle at Cana, we 
have the new feature, that it was performed at a distance from its 
object. At Cana, Christ speaks the word, and the father did not fail 
to mark the time, as it was just noon. At Capernaum, the effect 
follows at the same instant, the nature of the disease being such as to 
i enable the by-standers to mark the very hour at which " the fever 
left him." The servants set out from Capernaum with the news, 
ignorant of what had passed at Cana, and find their message received 
as the confirmation of hope, rather than an unlooked-for deliverance 
from despair. Then did master and servant alike see the deeper 
grace which lay beneath the gift of healing, the new life to their own 
souls : " himself believed, and his whole house." There remains but 
one wonder unexplained : — that a miracle resting on such evidence, 
and conveying such lessons, should not produce the like faith in all 
who read it. 

This brief sojourn at Cana, and this great miracle, which the order 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 611 

of St. John seems to require us to place immediately after the return 
of Jesus from Jerusalem to Galilee, may be regarded as a preface to 
the opening of his public ministry in the latter country, which we 
may place about the beginning of a. d. 28. 

" The word which began from Galilee, after the baptism which 
John preached," is the description of our Saviour's ministry by St. 
Peter. This view agrees so entirely with the order of the first three 
Evangelists, that, had we possessed their Gospels only, we should 
scarcely have suspected the interval which is filled up with such 
momentous events in the Gospel of St. John. The full view of the 
case, drawn from the comparison of all the four Gospels, seems to be 
this: — As the first experimental step in Christ's public ministry, he 
presented himself as the Son of God, the promised Messiah, among 
those Jews who claimed to be the pure children of Abraham, at the 
centre of their religious system, the Temple in Jerusalem. Not till 
they had rejected this special offer of grace to them, and plotted 
against his life, did he open his wider mission of mercy to the mixed 
race of the Galileans ; and their position in relation to the Jews of 
Judaea in some sense foreshadows the extension of the Gospel to the 
Gentiles. Those higher privileges, of which the Judsean Jews 
boasted, proved the chief obstacle to their reception of Christ as the 
Saviour of sinners ; and so he turned to " the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel." Thus, while his first open revelation as the promised 
Messiah was made in the Temple of Jerusalem at the Passover, the 
true beginning of his Gospel, in the stricter sense, as " the word which 
God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus 
Christ," was first opened by the Galileans. If his public ministry 
began at Jerusalem, his open preaching began in Galilee. Perhaps 
this relation is implied in the peculiar phraseology of St. Luke, that 
"Jesus returned, by the power of the Spirit, into Galilee." This 
course was in complete accordance with prophecy, which had marked 
out the very spot in Galilee, where Capernaum stood by the lake, on 
the borders of Zabulon and Naphthali, as the chief scene of the 
Messiah's ministry. Nor should we omit to observe the coincidence 
that, as the captivity of Israel had begun with the Galileans, so to 
them was first proclaimed the liberty of the Gospel. 

From this point the first three Evangelists begin their continuous 
narratives of our Saviour's life. What precedes this, in each of thorn, 
is introductory : — The birth and youth of John and Jesus, the minis- 
try of John, and Christ's baptism and temptation. Of those matters 
it is not probable that either of the three Evangelists had any direct 



612 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

personal knowledge. St. Luke, who tells us that he followed those 
" who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the 
word/' is most full on those first incidents which he could only have 
learned from the members of the Holy Family. All three give a brief 
account of the ministry of John the Baptist, received, no doubt, from 
those of his disciples who followed Christ. Their narrative of the 
temptation must have been derived by Matthew directly, by Mark 
and Luke at second-hand, from Him who passed through the conflict. 
After this, each of the three Gospels makes a pause, such as would be 
properly marked by the beginning of a new chapter, or even by making 
all that precedes a separate introduction. Their omission of the 
events meanwhile recorded by St. John is not surprising. Matthew, 
himself a native of Capernaum, naturally begins with our Lord's resi- 
dence in that city, when, " leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in 
Capernaum." Luke, who, as we have seen, obtained information from 
the Holy Family, makes Christ's rejection at Nazareth the first prin- 
cipal event. Mark, writing under the direction of Peter, begins with 
the call of that apostle and his fellow-fishermen on the shores of the 
Lake of Galilee. It is needless to discuss the refined question, Why 
did not St. Mark record those events of which Peter was the witness 
as well as John at Bethabara (or Bethany), at Cana, at Jerusalem, at 
Sychar, and again at Cana ? Perhaps the extent to which Mark 
should be viewed as Peter's organ has been exaggerated. At all events, 
it is enough that John was an especially fit witness to that period, not 
only from his constant companionship, but from his deeper insight 
into his Master's teaching. 

In all that has now been said, the higher authority of the Evan- 
gelists, as inspired writers, is left untouched. The w T hole doctrine of 
inspiration itself rests on the previous establishment of the character 
of the sacred writers as well-informed, competent, and honest wit- 
nesses. The same Lord, who promised the Spirit to guide his disci- 
ples into all the truth, and to bring to their remembrance all his 
words, chose those disciples to be " eye-witnesses and attendants of 
the word." It was from those who had this character that St. Luke 
claims to have had " a perfect understanding of all things from the 
very first," and therefore to be qualified to write of them. And the 
very Evangelist who records the promise of the Holy Spirit rests his 
own credibility on his external means of information, as well as on 
the internal assurance of the Spirit to his truth : — " He that saw it 
bare record, and his record is true : and he knoweth that he saith true, 
that ye might believe." Inspiration gives an authority in addition to 
their credibility. 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 613 

The epoch thus chosen by the first three Evangelists, as the com- 
mencement of oar Lord's public ministry, is most emphatically 
marked by the words of Luke : " Jesus returned in the power 
of the Spirit into Galilee." The time had come, as he himself 
soon proclaimed at Nazareth, when the Spirit moved him to make a 
full and plain declaration of his Messiahship and his Gospel. All 
three Evangelists begin this portion of their narrative with the great 
fact of his proclamation of " the Gospel of the kingdom." His first 
words echo those of his forerunner : — " The time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand ; repent ye, and believe the Gospel." He 
does not yet announce the kingdom of heaven as come, but only its 
near approach, as the call to the preparation of heart needful for en- 
trance within its pale. This is not, at least in its primary sense, the 
language of expectation for that kingdom of glory, for which the 
Church still prays ; for Christ proclaimed the real advent of the 
kingdom of grace and life in the hearts of penitent believers : — 
" Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ;" — 
" The publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before 
you " (the Pharisees). But to all else, up to the very close of his 
ministry, Christ proclaimed the kingdom of heaven only as nigh. It 
only came to those who entered it with the preparation on which first 
John, and then Christ himself, insisted. But this was the great dif- 
ference in their ministry. John never ceased to point to a far greater 
One who was coming after him : Christ declared that the fulness of 
time was come, and the prophecies were fulfilled in himself. The pre- 
paration required by John was repentance and reformation. Christ 
goes deeper, and besides repentance he demands faith, — readiness to 
believe from the heart the truths he came to teach. This was his 
claim in the outset of his ministry, reserving for its course the full 
revelation of those truths and the spiritual exposition of that faith ; 
the laws of the kingdom of heaven. Thus much, however, was clear 
from the first, that, in proclaiming the new order of things as a king- 
dom, Christ pointed to the fulfilment of the covenant with David, and 
claimed all the authority of his promised seed. 

The news of his preaching soon spread through all the district of 
northern Galilee. Unlike John, who had lifted up his voice in the 
wilderness, and waited for converts to come out to him, Jesus went 
round from village to village, appearing as a worshipper in the syna- 
gogues, and availing himself of the customary invitation to speak to 
the people; and "he was glorified of all." 

We are not told what or how much he taught — probably the simple 



614 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

lesson, expounded from the prophets, that " the kingdom of heaven 
was at hand." How near it was, when he himself was present, was 
an announcement that he reserved for — or perhaps we should rather 
say was impelled by the Spirit to make to — the people of his own 
city. " He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up." And 
there, even as he made the first plain announcement of his Messiah- 
ship, he encountered the first open opposition, for, as he himself said, 
" A prophet is not accepted in his own country." Here, as was the 
custom in all Galilean synagogues, but doubtless with a more eager 
expectation, he was invited to read the Scriptures and address the 
people. It was plainly not without some high purpose that he chose 
the passage of Isaiah : "The Spirit of Jehovah is upon me, because he 
hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me 
to heal the broken-hearted, and to preach deliverance to the captives, 
and recovering of sight to the blind ; to set at liberty them that are 
bruised ; to preach the acceptable year of Jehovah " — the Jubilee of 
the world. He closed the book, and returned it to the officer of the 
synagogue who kept the sacred rolls, and sat down. But all eyes 
remained fixed upon him in an expectation which he satisfied rather 
than surprised, by announcing himself as the Christy who was thus 
filled with the Spirit, to preach this Gospel : — " This day is this scrip- 
ture fulfilled in your ears." 

At first, the hearers were divided between admiration of the Prophet 
and offence at his origin, as the son of their humble fellow-townsman 
Joseph. But when, foreseeing that they would raise the selfish cry for 
signs and wonders to glorify his own city, Jesus intimated that he 
was sent to the Gentiles — such as the Sidonian widow to whom Elijah 
ministered, and the Syrian leper whom Elisha healed, the Prophet's 
own countrymen being passed over in both cases — then their wonder 
turned to rage. They dragged him out of the city, to cast him from 
the hill upon which it was built • but he passed unseen from the 
midst of them, and so escaped. 

Jesus next appeared at Capernaum, on the Lake of Galilee. His 
residence at this city, which had already witnessed one of his greatest 
miracles, and perhaps more, is referred to by himself as having raised 
the place to heaven in privilege, though its unbelief cast it down to 
hell. Meanwhile the place became the centre from which the " great 
light," predicted by Isaiah, shone round upon "the people that 
walked in darkness" and " sat in the region and shadow of death." 
The tribes of Zabulon and Naphthali, after being seduced into idola- 
try through their neighborhood to the Phoenicians on the one side, 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 615 

were among the first who succumbed to the attacks of the Assyrians 
on the other. Having been carried captive by Tiglath-pileser, their 
land was repeopled in a great degree by a mixture of heathen settlers, 
and thus the northern part of Galilee acquired both the name and 
character of "Galilee of the Gentiles." 

Our Saviour's chief resort was now the margin of that beautiful 
lake which is variously called the Sea of Galilee, of Tiberias, and of 
Gennesareth. This region of beauty was to Him the scene of constant 
labor for the souls that sat there in darkness. Days begun in preach- 
ing were filled up with the relief of hundreds who were sick, maimed, 
or tormented with devils ; and the ensuing nights were spent in lonely 
agonies of prayer, or in crossing over the stormy lake. Here Christ is 
first presented to our view as preaching the word of God to such multi- 
tudes, that he was fain to seek a station whence to address them on the 
lake itself. Two fishing-boats were drawn up on the beach, while their 
owners were employed in washing their nets. Jesus entered one of 
them, which was Simon's, as St. Luke simply tells us, without any 
allusion to his previous call. After teaching the people from a short 
distance off the coast, Christ bade Simon and his brother Andrew to 
put out into deep water, and to let down their nets. Now appears 
the first mark of recognition: — "Master" says Simon, " we have 
toiled all the night, and have taken nothing : nevertheless, at thy 
word, I will let down the net." The cast was followed by such a 
haul of fish, that the net broke ; they called for help to their partners, 
the owners thdpf other ship, who were no other than John the son 
of Zebedee, and his brother James ; and the fish so loaded both 
the ships, that they began to sink. Overcome by these wonders, 
Peter fell down upon his knees, saying, " Depart from me, for I am 
a sinful man, O Lord," thus, by direct prayer to Christ, with confes- 
sion of sin, recognizing for the first time his true divinity. 

What John records was not yet a call to constant atten- 

A D 28 

dance on the Master and the ministry of the Word, though 
enough had passed to designate these first disciples for their future 
ministry, especially when they baptized Christ's converts, and when 
he spoke to them of their part in the coming spiritual harvest. Their 
return to their homes and their callings was an act of duty, and it 
gave them besides the opportunity of preparing for their final call in 
that gradual manner which usually marks God's own processes. We 
see them diligently employed in hard and often fruitless work, and 
the two of them, who are able to employ hired servants, sharing their 
father's labors with filial piety. That, amid their worldly business, 



HISTORY OF THE BIBL£. 

thev mav have somewhat forgotten their higher calling:, is iu accord- 
ance with human nature, and seems almost implied in their occupa- 
tion about their nets while Jesus was preaching on the shore. With 
bis own exquisite gentleness he recalls them to himself, first by using 
Peter's boat to address, the people from, and then by repaying its use 
with a generosity which was nevertheless eclipsed by the miracle it 
involved. So Peter falls down, not to thank the giver for the fish, 
but to glorify the Lord by a confession that proved himself to be now 
prepared for the work to which he is forthwith called : — " Fear not ; 
from henceforth thou shalt catch men.'' The interpretation of this 
figure was made by Christ himself, when he compared the kingdom 
of heaven to a net cast into the sea ; and the lesson was repeated in 
his last interview with his disciples on the Lake of Galilee, when the 
fact that, with another miraculous draught of fishes, u (he nd did not 
break" intimated that the time was at length come to reward the 
spiritual labors of these M fishers of men." 

Meanwhile they left all, fish, nets, and ship, to become the constant 
followers of Christ ; and the same course was taken by their partners, 
James and John, who had returned to the shore, and were busy with 
their father Zebedee mending their broken nets, when Jesus called 
them in the words he had used to Peter and Andrew. It is a fine 
touch in St. Mark's narrative, that their father was not left uncared 
for : " They left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired ser- 
vant-. " *• 

The following Sabbath was a memorable day at Capernaum. In 
the midst of the synagogue, where Jesus appeared according to his 
custom, exciting new astonishment by the power of his teaching, 
there was one of those unhappy wretches called Demoniacs. The 
state of such persons has been a most fruitful topic of controversy; 
but one thing is quite clear, that its reality cannot be denied or 
explained away, without impugning the whole truth of the Gospels. 
For they most clearly assume the personal presence of evil spirits in 
the possessed man, overpowering his will and governing his actions. 
The unclean spirits are said to " enter in" and "depart out of" the 
patients. They speak and are spoken to. both while within their 
victims and after they have come out. They hold converse with 
Christ in a manner quite unsuitable to the sufferers, but just on the 
terms we should expect from fallen spirits, still in rebellion against 
his authority, which yet they are compelled to own. He fixes their 
verv place of abode, after they have left the bodies of their victims. 
In the face of all these statements, to explain away possession as 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 617 

epilepsy, or lunacy, is to accuse our Saviour and the Evangelists of a 
delusion or imposture (and it could scarcely have been the former) as 
gross as that of the modern " spiritualists." In some cases, bodily or 
mental disease may have co-existed with the possession, which is, 
therefore, classed with sicknesses, while at the same time distinguished 
from lunacy, a distinction which was clearly drawn by the Jews 
themselves. Nor can it be said that Jesus simply used the name that 
had first been established by an erroneous belief, just as we keep the 
word lunacy. What should we think of a physician, who so used 
that word as to imply his belief in the thing ? who should describe 
the cure of his patients as the moon ceasing to afflict them ? nay, who 
should solemnly address the moon, and, with the authority of its 
Creator, bid it leave off hurting the patient? We do not affect to 
explain the state itself; nor need sceptical philosophers complain of 
this, till they have explained mental derangement. The limits and 
mutual reactions of the spiritual, mental, and corporeal faculties in 
man have as yet baffled all the researches of science. It is enough 
that we can see in this condition a consequence of the doctrine 
of a usurped kingdom of evil in the world, under a personal head 
(5taj3oxoj) with many followers and ministers (Scu^ovfj, Schema) who 
exercise power over fallen man. 

" Jesus went about healing all that were oppressed of the devil." 
In his own temptation he had sternly rebuked Satan's attempt to 
make him a subject, and now he proved his right to the kingdom by 
his unbounded power over evil spirits, who confess their own defeat. 
Nay, even before he exerts his power, they anticipate their doom. 
They know that that doom is certain, that " their time is short," and 
that he is both the divine " Lord of Angels " (the Archangel), alike 
of the holy and the fallen, and " the seed of the woman " who was to 
" bruise the serpent's head." So, while he taught in the synagogue 
at Capernaum, the devil cried out, in surprise and terror, " Ha ! 
What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? Art thou 
come to destroy us?" — as on other occasions, "Art thou come to 
torment us before the time?" But he adds, "I know thee who thou 
art, the Holy One of God ;" and this is one of the most remarkable 
points in our Lord's dealings with the evil spirits, the testimony they 
bear to him. Hell is before Earth in acknowledging her Lord. 
Fear has a quicker perception than Love, or even than the sense of 
need. " The devils also believe and tremble." This confession had 
been regarded by some as an involuntary utterance of truth or as an 
act of abject fawning, and by others as an unwilling testimony 



618 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

extorted by the power of Christ. But the fact that he rejects it 
concurs with other considerations in suggesting that its real motive 
was malicious. His acknowledgment by the devils seems to be 
closely connected with the accusation of the Jews : — " He casteth out 
devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." But while their con- 
fession proved that he was their master, he will not accept their 
testimony to his spiritual character and mission. He, who had other 
and greater witness even than John the Baptist, will not use their 
utterances to reveal what is revealed by his own word. So on this, 
and all similar occasions, he silences, we may say muzzles, the evil 
spirit, who takes a parting revenge by doing all the harm he could to 
the man's body, as he had tried to do to our Saviour's reputation. 
But the same power that cast him out, at once healed the body he 
had mangled. This example of our Saviour's power over the spirit- 
ual world was all the more striking by its contrast to those attempts 
at exorcism by which the Jews did little more than admit their belief 
in the reality of possession, and prove the fallacy of their charge 
against Christ, that his real exorcisms proved him to be in league 
with evil spirits. The fame of his decisive victory over Satan spread- 
through all the neighboring parts of Galilee. 

From the synagogue Christ went to the house of Peter, and healed 
his wife's mother, who was sick of a fever. The fact of Peter's 
marriage, which thus comes out incidentally, is alluded to by St. 
Paul as an argument for his own liberty to marry if he had only 
thought it expedient. This is one of the many cases, in which the 
facts recorded in Scripture seem specially designed to anticipate the 
errors of later ages. This great Sabbath of " doing good " was closed 
by an evening no less memorable. As soon as the sun had set, the 
people, who had scrupled to carry the sick to Christ before the Sab- 
bath ended, brought all in the town who were suffering from every 
form of disease, and among them many demoniacs ; and Jesus healed 
them all, again imposing silence on the evil spirits, when they pro- 
claimed him as the Christ. Thus did he show himself in the character 
foretold by Isaiah : — " Himself took our infirmities, and bare our 
sicknesses." The memorable Sabbath, the events of which are thus 
circumstantially recorded, may give us an example of our Lord's 
labors in his ministry, and show us how he fulfilled his own great 
saying concerning doing good on the Sabbath days : — " My Father 
worketh hitherto, and I work." 

9ft The next morning shows us another aspect of our Saviour's 
character. Instead of indolent repose after such a day of 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 



619 



labor, he rose up long before the dawn, and went into a solitary 
place to pray. Besides the impressive example of early rising and 
prayer, we see in this retirement, as in many other cases, the desire 
to withdraw himself out of the danger of a precipitate^ demonstration 
of premature zeal. Accordingly, when his disciples found him, he at 
once proposed to leave Capernaum for a time, and preach the Gospel 
in the surrounding cities. So he went throughout all Galilee, teach- 
ing in the synagogues and healing the sick and possessed. But it 
was not Galilee alone that reaped the benefit. The fame of his 
teaching and his miracles drew multitudes from the neighboring parts 
of Syria, from the whole of Decapolis, and the region beyond the 
Jordan and the lake, and even from Jerusalem and Judaea. 

This was Christ's First Circuit through GaHlee. Its course is con- 
jectured by Gresswell to have been, upon the whole, as follows : — 
" First, along the western side of the 
Jordan, northward, which would dis- 
seminate the fame of Jesus in Decapo- 
lis; secondly, along the confines of 
the tetrarchy of Philip, westward, 
which would make him known 
throughout Syria; thirdly, by the 
coasts of Tyre and Sidon, southward ; 
and, lastly, along the verge of Samaria, 
and the western region of the Lake 
of Galilee — the nearest points to 
Judasa proper and to Persea — until it 
returned to Capernaum. " Such a 

circuit must have occupied some months ; but,, perhaps, it is need- 
lessly enlarged, in order to bring Jesus near the parts from which 
his followers came. It would rather seem, notwithstanding the 
indefinite phrase, " all Galilee," that this first circuit had a narrower 
scope. After the man cured of leprosy had spread his fame abroad, 
he avoided such great publicity by retiring into the desert; and it 
was there that "they came to him from every quarter." Nor do the 
meagre details of this circuit seem consistent with a great extent or a 
long duration. Its only recorded incident is the miracle just referred 
to, by which Christ showed his power over a disease incurable in its 
virulence, and excluding the sufferer from the society of his fellows 
as well as the ordinances of religion ; one which, for all these reasons, 
has ever been considered a type of inveterate sin. In healing the 
leper by a touch, our Saviour not only showed his power but claimed 




LEPERS WORSHIPPING CHRIST. 



620 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

a right that belonged only to the priest, and asserted his own exemp- 
tion from ceremonial defilement. In saying, " I will, be thou clean," 
he assumed a still higher prerogative, and pointed to a more thorough 
purification of the whole nature ; while, in sending the man to the 
priest, and bidding him offer the sacrifice appointed by Moses, he at 
once showed his own reverence for the law, and made his very 
enemies witnesses to the cure. The scene of this miracle was " a 
certain city," the name of which is not mentioned, but which seems 
to have been Christ's abode for some time. But, in consequence of 
the multitudes who were attracted by the fame of the miracle, which 
the healed leper "blazed abroad" contrary to our Lord's injunction, 
he withdrew into the wilderness, and, perhaps, we may see in this 
circumstance a premature termination of the circuit. St. Mark alone 
gives any hint of its duration by the indefinite phrase, that Christ 
returned to Capernaum " after [some] days." 

The return of Jesus to Capernaum was followed by one of the most 
important incidents of his ministry. We have seen that followers 
flocked to him even from Jerusalem and Judaea. Among these, as 
well as from the cities of Galilee, there were many Pharisees and 
teachers of the law, who came to watch him. In their presence, 
Jesus performed his great miracle of curing the bedridden paralytic ; 
but not till he had first said to him, " Thy sins be forgiven thee!" 
The Jews saw the full extent of the prerogative thus claimed. 
Malignant as was their spirit, in charging him with blasphemy, their 
reasoning was perfectly right: — "Who can forgive sins, but God 
alone?" And even before replying, Christ proved his divine know- 
ledge by discerning in their hearts the objection which horror sus- 
pended on their tongues. Then he makes good his claim by words 
as well as deeds. The force of his argument is often lost by over- 
looking the proper emphasis, "Which is easier, to say, Thy sins be 
forgiven thee, or to say, Rise up and walk ? " The mere word proves 
nothing in either case ; but when the act followed upon the latter 
command, it proved the power that attended the former. The help- 
less patient, rising up at the word of Christ, and carrying his bed to 
his own house, was a living proof that He who had dared also to 
utter to him the words of absolution had really "power upon earth 
to forgive sins." The force of the argument was at once felt by the 
people, who saw brought to their own doors a power which was the 
prerogative of the God of heaven ; and " they glorified him, who 
had given such a power to man." The Pharisees and Doctors would 
carry back to Jerusalem the news that Jesus of Nazareth had now 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 621 

openly proclaimed his kingdom over the most sacred domain of man's 
spiritual life, as a sinner seeking forgiveness from his offended God. 

The call of Levi or Matthew, also at Capernaum, from the very- 
booth where as a publican (portitor) he was collecting taxes, is placed 
by Mark and Luke directly after the healing of the paralytic ; and 
there seems no sufficient reason for separating from it the feast given 
by Matthew, at which the ( presence of many publicans and sinners 
gave our Lord occasion to teach the offended Pharisees, that he had 
not come to call the righteous — those who fancied themselves such — 
but sinners, to repentance. At the same banquet Jesus answered the 
charge made against his disciples for not fasting, and taught, by the 
parable of the new wine in old bottles, and the new cloth sewn into 
an old garment, the impossibility of confining the spiritual power of 
his kingdom within the dead letter of forms and traditions. If, 
following the order of Matthew, we place after this the cure of the 
woman with an issue of blood, the restoration to life of the daughter 
of Jairus, the giving of sight to two blind men, and the casting a 
devil out of a dumb man, we have, in this first stage of our Lord's 
Galilean ministry, examples of nearly all his chief miracles. In each 
species of miracle we may trace some particular infirmity, the fruit 
and type of a marked sin, not necessarily in the individual sufferer, 
but in human nature. Disease, in general, is the result of sin, and 
the type of moral disorder; the demoniac, of passion; the leper, of 
pollution; the paralytic, of helpless prostration; the loss of sight, and 
speech, and hearing, are emblems of the loss of spiritual sense by the 
wilful shutting out of spiritual objects; and the whole train of evils 
is crowned by death, the wages of sin. Nor, in considering the 
various forms of our Lord's miracles, should we fail to notice the 
varied exhibitions of faith in those who came to him for relief; for it 
was in exciting and rewarding such faith that the moral power of his 
miracles was chiefly shown. 

Thus, in the course of a year, had Jesus, after giving the Jews 
assembled at the Passover the first great opportunity which they lost, 
gathered in the first-fruits of spiritual harvest from the rejected soil 
of Samaria, and revealed the light of the Gospel amid the darkness 
of Galilee of the Gentiles, when, according to the most probable 
interpretation of John v. 1, the return of the Passover called him up 
for the second time to Jerusalem. 

"After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went 

A. T> 28 

up to Jerusalem." The chronological difficulty involved 
in this passage is discussed elsewhere ; and though the question seems 



622 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

incapable of absolute settlement, we may adopt the probability, that 
the " Feast " was the Passover (a. d. 28), as furnishing a definite, 
though not quite certain, order for the narrative. But the difficulty 
does not at all affect the importance of the ensuing transactions at 
Jerusalem, as giving occasion for the first of our Saviour's great 
discourses, in controversy with the unbelieving Jews. In such dis- 
courses we first see the great principle, afterward so conspicuous in 
the history of the Church, that controversy is called forth by opposi- 
tion and heresy, and then by controversy doctrine is established. 
And the office of recording this aspect of our Lord's ministry fell to 
John, not only as his most constant companion and the most intimate 
sharer of his thoughts, but as the apostle who survived till the 
heresies, which are more than once glanced at in the New Testament, 
had acquired such force as to be thus rebuked. The occasion was the 
miracle which Christ wrought on the palsied cripple at the pool 
which was fitly called Bethesda [the house of mercy), which was near 
the sheep-gate on the northeast side of the Temple. It is said that 
the waters of this tank were connected with those of the pool of 
Siloam by subterraneous channels, through which there were sudden 
flushes that made the water bubble up in commotion. At such 
seasons the water was supposed to have healing virtues ; confined, 
however, to the first who stepped down into the tank, round which 
porticoes were built, to shelter the multitudes of sick and cripples, 
who came to take their chance. The doubts that have been cast 
upon the prodigy do not in the least detract from the use made of it 
by Christ. On the contrary, the supposition of its being a delusion 
sets the truth of his miracle in a more striking light, as being the 
reality of that power which was there vainly sought. In any case, 
the miracle itself displayed the power, which Jesus claimed in the 
subsequent discourse, of exercising authority both over the laws of 
nature and the positive institutions of religion. The case chosen by 
our Lord was among the most hopeless of all that lay in the House 
of Mercy. The cripple had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years, 
the very period that his forefathers had wandered in the wilderness ; 
and the burden of his infirmities was aggravated by the consciousness 
that they were the natural reward of his sins. Thus he was a fit type 
of the people, in whom Jesus fulfilled the words of Isaiah, " Himself 
took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Jesus healed him, not 
by helping him to the waters, nor by any other visible agency, but 
by the very command to use the powers that had been so long sus- 
pended : " Rise, take up thy bed, and walk ! " Some commentators 



CHRIST'S EARLY MINISTRY. 623 

see in this act a sort of humiliation for the sin which had prostrated 
the sufferer. At all events, it involved other important consequences; 
for the offence which was loudly expressed by the Jews gave occasion 
to the first of those great doctrinal discourses of our Lord, which 
form so marked a feature of the Gospel of St. John. 

" On the same day was the Sabbath ;" and the Jews at once accused 
the man of Sabbath-breaking. They had, indeed, the letter of the 
law on their side ; for carrying a burden was a " servile work," and 
this very act had been especially denounced by the prophets. But 
yet the man's simple answer involved a decisive argument: — "He 
that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed and 
walk." It is the same argument afterward urged on just such another 
occasion : " How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles ?" 

Our Lord himself enforced the argument, in defending himself 
against the Jews, who would have put him to death as a Sabbath- 
breaker. Virtually denying their jurisdiction, he asserted his own 
supremacy over the Sabbath, and by implication over every positive 
law, by the proof just given of his authority over the laws of nature, 
and on no less a ground than his own supreme divinity, as equal with 
the Father : — " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." These 
words involve the whole spirit of Christ's teaching in regard to the 
Sabbath. When God fininished his work of creation, his Sabbatic 
rest was not inaction. He works continually, in his providence and 
his grace, in the work of sustaining his creatures, and especially in 
restoring them from their fall, and creating them anew to spiritual 
life. Thus has God " done good " hitherto, throughout the Sabbatic 
cycle of the ages. In this work, as in the material creation, the Word 
of God is the partaker and the true agent. So when he was made 
flesh, he made the same use of his earthly Sabbaths, and employed 
them in alleviating the burdens of the nature he had assumed. Thus 
"the Son of Man " was constituted " Lord of the Sabbath." In that 
character he proclaimed the great principles — "The Sabbath was 
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath ;" — " I will have mercy 
rather than sacrifice ;" — and he added the practical law, which once 
received in its spirit would leave little room for casuistry, " Where- 
fore it is lawful" — not simply allowable, as an exception, but right, as 
the very essence of the institution — " It is lawful to do good on the 
Sabbath days." Not once only, but again and again, he illustrated 
these principles by such cases as that of the beast of burden fallen into 
a pit ; he acted upon them, both in his ordinary work as a teacher, 
the highest form of" doing good," and by working miracles especially 



624 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

on this day, and maintained them in repeated arguments against the 
Jews. 

The other assertion involved in our Saviour's words was as clear to 
the understanding of the Jews as it was hateful to their prejudices. 
" Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only 
had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, mak- 
ing himself equal with God." Instead of disowning the inference, 
our Saviour joins issue upon its truth. Pointing to his works as a 
proof of the perfect unity of power between his Father and himself, 
he claims the highest attribute of God, the power to confer spiritual 
life, and he declares, as a practical appeal to his opponents, that now 
was the season for its exercise. Their indignation at this new blas- 
phemy is met, as on other occasions, by the remonstrance, " Marvel 
not at this," as the preface to new wonders, for this power to give 
spiritual life, arising from the divine life which the Son had in him- 
self, would soon be proved by his power to awake the dead, and to 
call them before his own judgment-seat. For to him alone was com- 
mitted the divine attribute of judgment, because with him alone were 
the eternal principles of justice. 

The latter part of the discourse relates to the evidence of these 
claims. The recent testimony of John, added to the teaching of 
Moses and all the Scriptures, left the Jews without excuse for their 
unbelief, which Jesus traces back to the depravity of their will. But 
he appeals to higher testimony still, his own witness of himself, con- 
firmed by the witness of the works which the Father had given him 
to do. But, in presenting these great truths and this convincing evi- 
dence, Jesus addresses the rulers of the Jews, not as disciples to be in- 
structed and convinced, but as enemies \ to be put to shame by the 
truth they hated ; and to all the other proofs of his omniscience, he 
adds his knowledge of their ingrained aversion to God's truth. 

This discourse may serve as an example of those which occupy so 
large a proportion of the Gospel of St. John, especially the 6th, 7th, 
8th, 9th, and 10th chapters. The precise points in controversy, and 
the illustrations employed by Christ, vary with the several occasions ; 
but in all he appears claiming a dignity and authority no less than 
divine ; in all he convicts the Jews, and especially their rulers, from 
their own most cherished principles, of obstinate unbelief in rejecting 
his divine authority. Meanwhile, he had no sooner borne the first of 
these great testimonies against the Jewish rulers, than he withdrew 
himself from their plots against his life, and returned from this Pass- 
over, where he had once more experienced and rebuked the unbelief 
of the Jews, to the scene of his more hopeful labors in Galilee. 



G2(3 III STORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY IN GALILEE, FROM AFTER HIS SECOND 
PAS=OVER, IN A. D. 28, TO NEAR THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, A. D. 29. 

r^lflXCE more we behold Jesus returning from the city of his 
father David, where he had proved himself the promised 
spiritual king, rejected and persecuted with a spite that was 
literally deadly. Though his retirement from Jerusalem re- 
moved him beyond the immediate danger that the rulers 
might have found means to take his life, either in a tumult or by 
persuading the Roman procurator, he was still pursued by their 
hostility. During this second period of his Galilean minis- 
try, we often see how closely he was watched by the 
emissaries of the Jewish rulers. On his very journey he was followed 
by the same charge which had formed their pretext for plotting 
against his life at Jerusalem. The innocent act of his hungry disci- 
ples, which was sanctioned by a merciful law, of plucking and eating 
the ripe ears, as they walked through the corn-fields on the Sabbath, 
was construed into Sabbath-breaking. At least, the view that the 
Feast of John v. was a Passover, compared with the order of the 
other Evangelists, jnay justify us in regarding the controversy that 
arose out of the act of the disciples as having occurred on the way 
back from Jerusalem to Galilee. At all events, the fact of the corn 
being ripe points to the tirce of the Passover; though it would 
depend on the species of the grain, whether this was immediately 
before the Passover, when the barely-harvest began, or later, when 
the wheat was ripe. With this question another is connected, con- 
cerning the phrase "the second-first Sabbath," of which the most 
probable interpretation is that of Wieseler, that it was the " first 
Sabbath of the second year after the Sabbatic year." 

In reply to the charge of Sabbath-breaking made by the Pharisees 
against the disciples, Jesus reminds them that David, whose example 
they are not likely to challenge, ate the sacred shew-bread in the 
tabernacle, which it was not lawful to eat. The priests might partake 
of it, but not a stranger. David, on the principle that mercy was 
better than sacrifice, took it and gave it to the young men that were 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 627 

with him that they might not perish for hunger. In order further to 
show that a literal mechanical observance of the law of the Sabbath 
would lead to absurdities, Jesus reminds them that this law is per- 
petually set aside on account of another : " The priests profane the 
Sabbath and are blameless." The work of sacrifice, the placing of 
the shew-bread, go on upon the Sabbath, and labor even on that day 
may be done by priests, and may please God. It was the root of 
the Pharisees' fault that they thought sacrifice better than mercy, 
ritual exactness more than love : " If ye had known what this mean- 
eth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned 
the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." 
These last words are inseparable from the meaning of our Lord's 
answer. In pleading the example of David, the king and prophet, 
and of the priests in the temple, the Lord tacitly implies the greatness 
of his own position. He is indeed Prophet, Priest, and King ; and 
had he been none of these, the argument would have been not merely 
incomplete, but misleading. It is undeniable that the law of the 
Sabbath was very strict. Against labors as small as that of winnow- 
ing the corn a severe penalty was set. Our Lord quotes cases where 
the law is superseded or set aside, because he is One who has power 
to do the same. And the rise of a new law is implied in those words 
which St. Mark alone has recorded : " The Sabbath was made for 
man, and not man for the Sabbath." The law upon the Sabbath 
was made in love to men, to preserve for them a due measure of rest, 
to keep room for the worship of God. The Son of Man has power to 
re-adjust this law, if its work is done, or if men are fit to receive a 
higher. 

The lesson then given was repeated on the following Sabbath, when 
Christ healed a man with a withered hand in the synagogue (proba- 
bly at Capernaum), and silenced the Jews, who were watching to see 
if he would perform the miracle, by the argument applied by them- 
selves in their own affairs, that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath 
days. The application to their consciences was all the keener, as, 
while he was doing good and saving life, they were doing evil and 
seeking to destroy his ; and, stung to madness by his discernment of 
their secret thoughts, they began to plot against him with the adhe- 
rents of Herod Antipas, the political party called Herodians, thus 
endangering his security even' in Galilee. 

Upon this, Jesus withdrew to some retired spot on the shores of 
tlio lake of Galilee; but even here he was followed by a multitude 
from all parts of the Holy Land, and even beyond its borders, from 



3 

H 
30 
O 

H 

hd 

- 
on 



d 
o 

Q 

O 


w 




628 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 629 

Idurnaea on the south, to Tyre and Sidon on the north. As they 
thronged the shores of the lake, Jesus addressed them from a small 
vessel, which he desired his disciples to provide. He healed their 
diseases and cast out unclean spirits, charging both the patients and 
the demons not to make him known. In these acts of mercy, ex- 
tended to many who were aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, and 
yet withdraAvn so carefully from all public parade, Matthew sees the 
fulfilment of Isaiah's great prophecy of the Messiah as the merciful 
judge of Gentiles as well as Jews: — the chosen and beloved servant 
of God, yet so meek that he would not strive or cry for his rights, 
nor lift up the voice of self-assertion among the haunts of men ; — so 
merciful that he would not break the bruised reed as useless, nor 
quench the smoking lamp-wick as hopeless ; and yet so powerful, by 
this very might of gentleness, that his just judgments should finally 
be crowned with universal victory, and his name command the faith 
of all the nations. 

In this assembly on the shores of the lake of Galilee, we see at 
length all the elements of the visible Church of Christ separated from 
the world ; and, if among those who had followed him into these 
solitudes, there were secret unbelievers, or opponents, or even traitors, 
we need be the less surprised, as their type was found even among 
those whom he himself chose for his ministers and companions. So 
now he proceeds to provide for his Church the teachers who were to 
guide them, and the doctrines which they were to teach and the 
people to receive ; the former by appointing the Twelve Apostles, 
the latter by the discourse known as the Sermon on the Mount. Not 
that his appointments were, in either case, complete or final. Much 
was left to be ordered and revealed in the future, by his own teaching, 
by the free action of spiritual life in his people, and especially by the 
direction of the Holy Spirit, poured out after he had left the earth. 
The ministers whom he now appointed were those needed to bear 
witness to his own deeds and words ; the truths he taught were those 
essential to the very entrance into his kingdom. 

Our Saviour's whole position at this period of his minis- 

A D 28 

try not only suggested, but may even be said to have claimed 
some such public exposition of his doctrine as wc find in the Sermon 
on the Mount. His mission had been unfolded step by step, till it 
lay fully open to the inquiries of his disciples and the objections of his 
foes; and the time had come to rebuke malignant cavils, to correct 
erroneous expectations, and to satisfy humble and earnest inquiries. 
The multitudes who had followed him to the shores of the lake were 



630 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

in a condition not inlike those whom Moses had led out into the wil- 
derness. They hud seen and heard enough to prepare them to hear 
the law of God from his own lips ; and they are assembled before a 
mount, whose very name marks it as far more glorious than Sinai, the 
Mount of Beatitudes. But, in this case, as in that, a solemn pause 
precedes the utterance of the divine word. The Mediator himself is 
called to close and secret communion with God, while the people have 
an interval of awful expectation. Alone, like Moses, Jesus "went up 
into the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." 
At break of day he called to him his disciples. That this term sig- 
nifies a select body, chosen by himself from the mass of his followers, 
is clear from the words of Mark, " He calleth whom he would, and 
they came unto him." Out of this number he chose twelve, whom he 
named Apostles, and ordained them, " that they should be with him, 
and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have power to 
heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils." For these works they after- 
ward received a special commission from him, and performed them, 
as his emissaries, during his ministry on earth. After his ascension, 
it became their chief mission to bear witness to Christ's resurrection, 
as the crowning fact of his course, and by this evidence to call both 
Jews and Gentiles to believe the Gospel. For this their constant per- 
sonal intercourse with Christ was the first qualification ; and therefore 
Peter speaks of them as " witnesses chosen before of God, even us, who 
did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead." So, when 
the vacant place of Judas had to be filled up, his successor was chosen, 
according to the rule laid down by Peter, " out of these men which 
have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and 
out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same 
day that he was taken up from us, to be a witness with us of his resur- 
rection." To this rule the case of St. Paul is only an apparent excep- 
tion. His want of fellowship with Jesus upon earth was supplied by 
those special revelations, to which he appeals in proof of his apostolic 
mission — " Am I not an apostle ? Have not I seen Christ ?" — " Paul, 
an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God;" — "an apostle, not of 
men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who 
raised him from the dead." The marks of the apostolic office, then, 
were these : — personal intercourse with Christ ; appointment by him- 
self; the gift of the Holy Spirit, breathed upon them by Christ and 
more openly conferred, according to his promise, on the day of Pente- 
cost, giving them power to work miracles and to speak in foreign 
tongues ; to which was added the power to confer that gift on others. 




631 



632 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



The union of those signs distinguished the Apostles from every other 
class of ministers. The number of the Apostles, corresponding to 
that of the twelve tribes of Israel, is clearly symbolical of their primary 
mission to the Jews. 

Among the disciples chosen to this office, we find, as might have 
been expected, those who had been the first to follow Christ, and who 
had already received from him a special call. Though the call of all 
alike proceeded from their Master's grace, we cannot fail to notice 
those personal qualifications which he himself condescended to own 
and use in his service : the firm faith of Peter (the Rock) ; the energy 
of the sons of Zebedee, whom he surnamed Boanerges (Sons of Thun- 
der), united in John with that spirit of love which made him the be- 
loved disciple; the fraternal and friendly affection of Andrew and 
Philip ; the devotion and guileless sincerity of Nathanael ; the self- 
sacrifice of Matthew ; the practical godliness of James, and the firm re- 
solve of his brother Judas to "contend earnestly for the faith once 
deliver to the saints ; M and, at the opposite extremity of the moral 
scale, that love of the world, which made Judas Iscariot an awful ex- 
ample, that even one of those chosen by Christ to live with him and 
hear his word could yet betray his Master, and prove to have been all 
along "a son of perdition " — for " he knew from the beginning, who 
should betray him." 

We have seen the conversion and call of seven of the Apostles. 
The rest (except perhaps Judas Iscariot) were also Galileans, and had 
probably joined the Master during his circuit of Galilee. The follow- 
ing are their names and order, as given by the three Evangelists (be- 
sides the list of the Eleven in Acts i. 13) : 



Matthew. 




Mark. 




LCKB. 


1. Simon Peter, and 


1. 


Simon Peter. 


1. 


Simon Peter, and 


2. Andrew, his brother. 


2. 


James, and \ surnamed 
John, J Boanerges. 


2. 


Andrew, his brother. 


3. James, and ) sons of 

4. John, % Zebedee. 


3. 


3. 


James, and 


4. 


Andrew. 


4. 


John. 


5. Philip, and 


5. 


Philip. 


5. 


Philip, and 


6. Bartholomew 


6. 


Bartholomew 


6. 


Bartholomew. 


7. Thomas, and 


7. 


Matthew. 


7. 


Matthew, and 


8. Matthew, the publican. 


8. 


Thomas. 


8. 


Thomas. 


0. James the son of Alpheeus. 


9. 


James, the son Alphaeus. 


9. 


James the son of Alphaeus. 


JO. Leblueus, surnamed Thaddaeus. 


10. 


Thaddaeus. 


10. 


Simon Zelotes. 


11. Simon, the Canaanite. 


11. 


Simon, the Canaanite. 


11. 


Judas, the brother of James* 


12. Judas Iscariot, " who also 


12. 


Judas Iscariot, " who also 


12. 


Judas Iscariot, " which was 


betrayed Him." 




betrayed Him." 




also the traitor." 



"* The difficult question as to who were the brethren of our Lord has given 
rise to much controversy. They are first mentioned in Matt. xiii. 55: "Is not 
this the carpenter's son ? is not his mother called Mary ? and 7tis brethren, James 
and Joses, and Judas and Simon ? and his sisters, are they not all with us ?" 
The natural conclusion would seem to be that Jesus had four brothers of the above 
names, as well as sisters. But by comparing Matt, xxvii. 56, and Mark xv. 40, 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 633 

In the form of the list, especially in Matthew and Luke, it is re- 
markable how much the names go in pairs. This circumstance con- 
firms the assumption that Bartholomew is the Nathanael 01 St. John, 
who was brought to Jesus by Philip. 

The close connection between the appointment of the Apostles and 

with John xix. 25, we find that the Virgin Mary had a sister named like herself, 
Mary, who was the wife of Clopas, and who had two sons, James the Little, and 
Joses. By referring to Matt. xiii. 55, and Mark vi. 3, we find that a James and 
a Joses, with two other brethren called Jude and Simon, and at least three sisters, 
were living with the Virgin Mary at Nazareth. By referring to Luke vi. 1G, 
and Acts i. 13, we find that there were two brethren named James and Jude 
among the Apostles. It would certainly be natural to think that we had here 
but one family of four brothers and three or more sisters, the children of Clopas 
and Mary, nephews and nieces of the Virgin Mary. There are difficulties, how- 
ever, in the way of this conclusion. For, 1, the four brethren in Matt. xiii. 55 
are described as brothers (a&i%.$oi) of Jesus, not as his cousins ; 2, they are found 
living as at their home with the Virgin Mary, which seems unatural if she were 
their aunt, their mother being, as we know, still alive ; 3, the James of Luke vi. 
15 is described as the son not of Clopas, but of Alphseus ; 4, the " brethren of the 
Lord " (who are plainly James, Joses, Jude, and Simon) appear to be excluded 
from the Apostolic band by their declared unbelief in his Messiahship (John vii. 
3-5), and by being formally distinguished from the disciples by the Gospel-writers 
(Matt. xii. 48 ; Mark iii. 33 ; John ii. 12 ; Acts i. 14) ; 5, James and Jude are not 
designated as the Lord's brethren in the list of the Apostles ; 6, Mary is desig- 
nated as the mother of James and Joses, whereas she would have been called 
mother of James and Jude, had James and Jude been Apostles, and Joses not an 
Apostle (Matt, xxvii. 46). 

These are the six chief objections which maybe made to the hypothesis of there 
being but one family of brethren named James, Joses, Jude and Simon. The 
following answers may be given : 

Objection 1.— " They are called brethren." But there can be no doubt that 
abf'ktyoi frequently signifies not "brothers," but cousins or other near relations ; 
and the translation of the word by " brothers" in Matt. xiii. 55 would produce 
very grave difficulties. For, first, it introduces two sets of four first cousins, 
bearing the same names of James, Joses, Jude, and Simon, who appear upon the 
stage without any thing to show which is the son of Clopas, and which his cousin ; 
and secondly, it drives us to take our choice between three doubtful and improb- 
able hypotheses as to the parentage of this second set of James, Joses, Jude, and 
Simon. There are three such hypothoses : — (a.) The Eastern hypothesis, that 
they were the children of Joseph by a former wife, (b.) The Helvidian hypothe- 
sis, that James, Joses, Jude and Simon, and the three sisters, were children of 
Joseph and Mary. This hypothesis also creates two sets of cousins with the same 
names, and it seems to be scarcely compatible with our Lord's recommending 
his mother to the care of St. John at his own death ; for if, as lias been suggested, 
though with great improbability, her sons might at that time have been unbe- 
lievers, Jesus would have known that that unbelief was only to continue for a few 
days, (c.) The Levirate hypothesis may be passed by. It was a mere attempt 
made in the eleventh century to reconcile the Greek and Latin traditions by sup- 



C34 HISTORY OF T II E BIBLE. 

the Sermon on the Mount is seen in the statement of St. Luke, that 
Jesus " came down with them " to address " the company of his dis- 
ciples and the great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jeru- 
salem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon." As those twelve 
chosen ministers stood with him on the Mount of Beatitudes in the 

posing that Joseph and Clopas were brothers, and that Joseph raised up seed to 
his dead brother. 

Objection. 2. — " The four brothers and their sisters are always found living and 
moving about with the Virgin Mary." If they were the children of Clopas, the 
Virgin Mary was their aunt. Her own husband would appear without doubt to 
have died at some time between A. d. 8 and a. d 20. Nor have we any reason 
for believing Clopas to have been alive during our Lord's ministry. What diffi- 
culty is there in supposing that the two widowed sisters should have lived to- 
gether, the more so as one of them had but one son, and he was often taken 
from her by his ministerial duties ? And would it not be most natural that two 
families of first cousins thus living together should be popularly looked upon as 
one family, and spoken of as brothers and sisters instead of cousins ? It is notice- 
able that St. Mary is nowhere called the mother of the four brothers. 

Objection 3. — "James the Apostle is said to be the son of Alphaeus, not of 
Clopas." But Alphaeus and Clopas are the same name rendered into the Greek 
language in two different but ordinary and recognized ways, from the Aramaic 
word. (Compare the two forms Clovis and Aloysius.) 

Objection 4. — Dean Alford considers John vii 5, compared with vi. 67-70, to 
decide that none of the brothers of the Lord were of the number of the Twelve. 
If this verse, as he states, makes the " crowning difficulty " to the hypothesis of 
the identity of James the son of Alphaeus, the Apostle, with James the brother 
of the Lord, the difficulties are not too formidable to be overcome. Many of the 
disciples having left Jesus, St. Peter bursts out in the name of the Twelve with a 
warm expression of faith and love; and after that — very likely (see Greswell's 
Harmony) full six months afterward — the Evangelist states that "neither did His 
brethren believe on Him." Does it follow from hence that all his brethren dis- 
believed ? Let iis compare other passages in Scripture. St. Matthew and St. 
Mark state that the thieves railed on our Lord upon the cross. Are we therefore 
to disbelieve St. Luke, who says that one of the thieves was penitent, and did not 
rail ? (Luke xxiii. 39, 40.) St Luke and St. John say that the soldiers offered 
vinegar. Are we to believe that all did so ? or, as St. Matthew and St. Mark tell 
us, that only one did it ? (Luke xxiii. 36; John xix. 29; Mark xv. 36; Matt. 
xxvii. 48.) St. Matthew tells us that "his disciples" had indignation when Mary 
poured the ointment on the Lord's head. Are we to suppose this true of all ? or 
of Judas Iscariot, and perhaps some others, according to John xii. 4, and Mark 
xiv. 4 ? It is not at all necessary to suppose that St. John is here speaking of all 
the brethren. If Joses, Simon, and the three sisters disbelieved, it would be quite 
sufficient ground for the statement of the Evangelist. The same may be said of 
Matt. xii. 47, Mark iii. 32, where it is reported to Him that his mother and his 
brethren, designated by St. Mark (iii. 21) as ol nap avrov, were standing without. 
Nor does it necessarily follow that the disbelief of the brethren was of such a 
nature that James and Jude, Apostles though they were, and vouched for half a 
year before by the warm-tempered Peter, could have had no share in it. It might 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 635 

morning glow that shone upon the lake, they resembled the heads of 
the twelve tribes, who were called up with Moses to hear the law given 
upon Sinai. The discourse which follows was spoken first to them, as 
the manual of their instructions, the code of the new kingdom of 
which they were the new ministers, the outline of the truths they were 
to teach. It is addressed also to the disciples in general, in that and 
every age, proclaiming the spirit of the new dispensation, to which they 
profess to have submitted, the truths they have to learn, the obliga- 
tions they have to fulfil, the tests by which they must be tried, the 
characters they must bear, if they are indeed the disciples of Jesus. It 
was uttered to the disciples in the hearing of all the people. 

The Sermon on the Mount carried to the minds of the hearers the 
conviction that Jesus was, to say the least, far above all their ordinary 
teachers ; " for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the 
scribes;" and he was followed by a new concourse of disciples, as he 
returned into Capernaum. Here he healed the servant of the Roman 
centurion, who seems to have been a Jewish proselyte, and whose 
faith, greater than was found in Israel, called forth the contrast, often 
afterward repeated, between the multitudes of Gentiles who should 
sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, 
and "the children of the kingdom/' who should be "cast out into 
outer darkness." At the gate of Nain, near Capernaum, he repeated 
by a single word the miracle, which Elisha had only performed with 
reiterated and agonizing prayers, of restoring the life of an only son 
to his widowed mother. 

About this time we have the last notice of John the 

Baptist before his death. He was still shut up in his 

prison, which, Josephus tells us, was at Machserus in Persea, a fortress 

have been similar to that feeling of unfaithful restlessness which perhaps moved 
St. John Baptist to send his disciples to make their inquiry of the Lord (see Gro- 
tius in loc, and Lardner, vi. p. 497. Lond. 1788). With regard to John ii. 12, 
Acts i. 14, we may say that " his brethren " are no more excluded from the dis- 
ciples in the first passage, and from the Apostles in the second, by being mentioned 
parallel with them, than "the other Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and 
Cephas" (1 Cor. ix. 5), excludes Peter from the Apostolic band. 

Objection. 5. — u If the title of brethren of the Lord had belonged to James and 
Jude, they would have been designated by it in the list of the Apostles." Tho 
omission of a title is so slight a ground for an argument that we may pass this by. 

Objection 6.— That Mary the wife of Clopas should be designated by the title 
of Mary the mother of James and Joses, to the exclusion of Jude, if James and 
Jude were Apostles, appears to Dean Alford extremely improbable. There is no 
improbability in it, if Joses was, as would seem likely, an elder brother of Jude, 
and next in order to James. 



636 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

celebrated iu the history of the Asmonseans and Herodians. Here 
his disciples came to tell him of the deeds of Christ. We cannot 
suppose that John himself had had a moment's doubt of the truth he 
himself had first proclaimed, that Jesus was the Messiah. On a 
former occasion, he had said enough to clear up all uncertainty and 
remove all jealousy from the minds of his disciples; but, less in- 
structed and less magnanimous than their master, they still need a 
further lesson ; and for this John sends two of them to Christ. They 
found him in the act of healing many of their diseases, casting out 
unclean spirits, and preaching the Gospel to the poor. His only 
reply is to bid them report to John what they had seen and heard, 
which he would doubtless tell them were the signs of the Messiah fore- 
told by the prophets, and he adds a gentle rebuke to their slowness 
of belief. With this message he sends them back to John, whose 
life was soon after terminated. Nothing but the death of the Baptist 
would satisfy the resentment of Herodias. Though foiled once, she 
continued to watch her opportunity, which at length arrived. A 
court festival was kept at Machaerus in honor of the king's birthday. 
After supper, the daughter of Herodias came in and danced before 
the company, and so charmed was the tetrarch by her grace, that he 
promised with an oath to give her whatever she should ask. Salome, 
prompted by her abandoned mother, demanded the head of John the 
Baptist. The promise had been given in the hearing of his distin- 
guished guests, and so Herod, though loth to be made the instrument 
of so bloody a work, gave instructions to an officer of his guard, 
who went and executed John in the prison, and his head was brought 
to feast the eves of the adulteress whose sins he had denounced. 

Meanwhile Jesus, turning to the people, vindicates John from any 
suspicion of wavering or time-serving that his message might have 
raised, and bears testimony to his true character as " a prophet, yea, 
more than a prophet." They had gone forth to the wilderness to see 
him, and what had they beheld? No pliant reed, that would bend 
before the wind of adversity : no dainty courtier, to fear a king's 
frown or a queen's hatred. No ! he was the very Elijah predicted by 
the prophets as the Messiah's herald ; but their childish folly, never 
knowing what to ask for or expect, vented itself in discontent and 
unbelief alike against the stern asceticism of John and the winning 
love of Jesus. " But Wisdom is justified of all her children." And 
now the time was already come for Christ to reveal himself as a 
judge, to those who would not accept him as a Saviour. The cities 
of Galilee most favored by his ministry — Chorazin, Bethsaida, and 




o 
n 



H 

ft 

O 

H 

«! 

O 



637 



638 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

especially Capernaum — are doomed to a far heavier judgment than 
Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah. Such words, littered now 
over Galilee, as afterward over Judaea and Jerusalem, show the 
wounded sympathies of the human friend, as well as the just indigna- 
tion of the divine Judge ; and Jesus finds his only consolation in 
thankful acknowledgment of the Father's wisdom in hiding the 
mvsteries of the kingdom from those wise in their own conceit, and 
revealing them to babes. Xone may attempt to penetrate the mystery 
of this humble submission of the Son, in his character of Mediator, 
to the Father's will ; but it has a practical aspect, which Christ him- 
self proceeds to enforce, as an example to all who labor under the 
burdens and weariness of the world, to come to him and learn the like 
spirit of meekness and humility, as the only means of finding rest to 
their souls. " For my yoke " — this of meek submission to God — " is 
easy, and my burden is light." 

Abundant as were the proofs that Jesus was the Messiah, the 
Christ, he had not yet been actually anointed. This act of consecra- 
tion was at length performed, not by the high-priest in the temple 
court, amid the acclamations of u God save the King," as Zadok and 
Xathan had anointed Solomon, but at a banquet in the house of a 
Pharisee named Simon, who had scorned to render to Jesus even the 
common offices of hospitality. There, as Jesus was reclining at the 
table, a degraded woman stole behind his couch, washing with her 
tears of penitence the feet for which Simon had offered no water, and 
having wiped them with the hair of her head, she kissed them in 
token of homage, and anointed them with some choice unguent from 
an alabaster box, the purchase doubtless of her evil gains. The 
Pharisee's indignation at her presence was almost forgotten in his 
satisfaction at Christ's want of discernment and apparent degradation. 
" This man/' thought lie to himself, " if he had been a prophet, would 
have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth 
him, for she is a sinner." Our Lord replies to the unuttered thought 
by a parable which leads Simon to confess that they love most who 
have had most forgiven; and then, turning to the woman, with all 
the authority of the Anointed of Jehovah, he declares the forgiveness 
of her many sins for her much love, and dismisses her in peace; 
while the Pharisees only dare to murmur within their hearts, " Who 
is this that forgiveth sins also ?" 

Xo reader, with a mind unmystified by tradition, could fail to un- 
derstand the delicacy which keeps the Evangelist silent about this 
woman's name. The assumption — most unfortunately countenanced 




CHRIST EATING BREAD WITH THE PUBLICANS. 



639 



640 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

by the heading of the chapter in our version — that she was Mary 
Magdalene, is only based on our finding Mary presently afterward 
mentioned among the women who ministered to Jesus, and as one out 
of whom he had cast seven devils. This phrase must here, as in 
every other passage, be taken literally, not figuratively for sins ; and 
thus it implies an intensity of demoniacal possession utterly incom- 
patible with a life of profligacy. Argument is, however, almost 
wasted on an error which has no evidence on its side, except that 
mere sequence of the narrative, which would just as well prove 
Joanna, or Susanna, or any one of the " many others," to have been 
the pardoned sinner. The loss of any countenance to the legends and 
works of art which have sprung from the mistake is the less to be re- 
gretted, as their influence is at least questionable ; while the great 
moral of our Lord's unbounded mercy, even to those sinners for whom 
the world has none, needs no aid from those who even go so far as to 
stain the purity of the family of Bethany by identifying that Mary at 
once with Mary Magdalene and the sinner. 

That repetition of the act by Mary, the sister of Lazarus, which 
forms the pretext for this last assumption, had a purpose and spirit 
altogether different, though there was a certain natural resemblance 
in the manner of performing it. Each showed sacrifice in the pre- 
cious gift she brought ; but with the one it was an offering of peni- 
tence, with the other of pure devotion. The "sinner" annointed 
Christ as the " Prince and Saviour, who gave repentance to Israel 
and remission of sin : " Mary, .whom Jesus had long since loved, 
gave the funeral unction to the body of her dear friend, in prospect 
of his death. 

Jesus now made a Second Circuit of Galilee, attended by 
the Twelve Apostles, and by certain women % who, having 
been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, proved their gratitude by 
ministering to him of their substance. Such ministry, the chief social 
comfort of our Lord's lonelv life, followed him to his death and 
burial ; and some of these devoted women were 

11 Last at the cross, and earliest at the tomb." 

Such was Mary, surnamed Magdalene, from her native village of 
Magdala, who is now mentioned for the first time, in association with 
Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many 
others. The chief events of this circuit were, the healing of a blind 
and dumb demoniac, followed by a controversy with the Pharisees, 
who charged Jesus with casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub ; 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 



641 




^^ -^^S&K^L-^us^ 



SEA OF GALILEE, FROM THE NORTHWEST COAST; WITH MAGDALA AND 

TIBERIAS. 

the reproof of the Pharisees for seeking a sign, in which Jonah's three 
days' confinement in the fish is made a type of our Lord's burial ; the 
visit of our Lord's mother and brethren, which called forth the decla- 
ration, that his true disciples are his nearest relatives; the stern 
denunciation of the Pharisees, and the solemn warnings to all the 
people concerning faithfulness and watchfulness, enforced by the use 
he makes of the fate of Pilate's victims and those crushed by the 
tower of Siloam, as well as by the parable of the barren fig-tree; the 
great parable of the Sower, and the other parables concerning the 
kingdom of heaven. The same evening on which these parables were 
spoken, Jesus dismissed the multitudes that followed him, and took 
ship to cross to the east side of the lake. On the voyage he performed 
the miracle which he afterward repeated, stilling a raging storm by 
his word, and thus again showing himself to the affrighted disciples 
as Lord of the most ungovernable powers of nature. To them the 
miracle was the more striking from their daily occupation among 
those waters. 

The country of Gadara (or Gergasa), on the east side of the lake, 
was now the scene of one of Christ's greatest miracles, the healing of 
the man possessed by a legion of devils, who were permitted to punish 
the illegal cupidity of the country people by entering and destroying 
their swine. The Gadarenes, caring more for their swine than for 
their souls, entreated him to leave their country, and he recrossed the 
41 



642 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

lake to Capernaum, where the people were awaiting him. The fea- 
tures of the country strikingly illustrate the circumstances of the nar- 
rative. Gadara stood on a partially isolated hill at the northwestern 
extremity of the mountains of Gilead, about sixteen miles from Tibe- 
rias, where lie the extensive and remarkable ruins of Um Keis. It 
occupies the crest of a ridge between two wadys ; and as this crest 
declines in elevation towards the east as well as the west, the situation 
is strong and commanding. Christ came across the lake from Caper- 
naum, and landed at the southeastern corner, where the steep lofty 
bank of the eastern plateau breaks down into the plain of the Jordan. 
The demoniacs met him a short distance from the shore ; on the side 
of the adjoining declivity the "great herd of swine" were feeding; 
when the demons went among them, the whole herd rushed down 
that a steep place " into the lake and perished ; the keepers ran up to 
the city and told the news, and the excited population came down in 
haste, and " besought Jesus that he would depart out of their coasts." 
Another thing is worthy of notice. The most interesting remains of 
Gadara are its tombs, which dot the cliffs for a considerable distance 
round the city. They are excavated in the limestone rock, and con- 
sist of chambers of various dimensions, some more than 20 feet square, 
with recesses in the sides for bodies. The present inhabitants of Um 
Keis are all troglodytes, " dwelling in tombs," like the Demoniacs of 
old ; and occasionally they are almost as dangerous to the unprotected 
traveller. 

About this time we must place Christ's second rejection at Xaza- 
reth, if, indeed, it was different from the first. The great extent of 
this circuit, during which "he went through every city and village," 
makes it probable that the end of the year 28 should be placed about 
its termination, if not earlier, leaving the three months before the 
Passover of B. c. 29 for the third circuit. 

After this, Jesus made a Third Circuit of Galilee, as ex- 

A D 29 

tensive as the former : — "-He went about all the cities and 
villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the 
kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the 
people." Jesus was followed by multitudes that were at last beyond 
the reach of his single powers. According to the image used by an 
old prophet, he saw them scattered abroad like sheep without a shep- 
herd, and worn out with their efforts to come to him, and he had 
compassion on them. What he had first told his disciples at Sychar 
had now come true on a far larger scale ; the spiritual harvest was too 
great for the laborers ; and so. after bidding them to pray the Lord 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 643 

of the harvest to send forth more laborers, he gives them their first 
commission to begin their work. He sent them out by two and two, 
giving them power to cast out devils and heal diseases, and to preach 
the kingdom of God. They were, in fact, to be his representatives, 
carrying the Gospel to those who could not, or only with great diffi- 
culty, attend on his own ministry. He gave them a charge, contain- 
ing. much that would prepare them for their future ministry ; but some 
things suited only to their present mission, especially the prohibition 
to enter the country of the Gentiles or cities of the Samaritans. This 
restriction doubtless referred, not only to the gradual process by which 
the Gospel was diffused, but also to the limited conceptions of the 
Apostles themselves, who could not yet have preached it except to the 
Jews. The charge that he gave them, while containing much that ap- 
plied specially to their present condition, embraces also the great prin- 
ciples by which his ministers are to be guided in every age. Their 
success was an earnest to themselves, and an example to all their suc- 
cessors, of his constant presence with his servants. " They went 
through the towns preaching the Gospel and healing everywhere." 
" They cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were 
sick, and healed them." 

The return of the Apostles coincided with some strange news, 
which was brought to Jesus from the court of Herod Antipas. We 
have seen how Herod had imprisoned John the Baptist for protesting 
against his unlawful marriage with Herodias; and how at last, amid 
the revelry of a birthday feast, the wanton wiles of Herodias's 
daughter had obtained the prophet's execution. And now that 
Herod heard of the miracles and success of Christ, his alarmed con- 
science imagined John risen from the dead, and he desired to see 
Jesus. Our Lord would neither incur danger before his time, nor 
gratify the king's curiosity; and he seems to have had another motive 
for retirement, in the elation of his disciples at their success. So he 
withdrew with them by ship into a lonely place. But the people, 
who saw his departure, hastened on foot from all the cities round 
the lake ; and soon the multitudes not only left him and the disciples 
no time even to eat, but began to be in want of food themselves. 

At this point the Gospel of John connects itself once more with 
the other three ; and we obtain from it the note of time which has 
been long wanting. " The Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh." 
This must, in all probability, be reckoned as the Third Passover 
during our Lord's ministry; for, even if the "feast of the Jews," in 
John v., be not the Passover, the intervention of a second Passover 



G44 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

is implied in the scene where the disciples plucked and ate the ears 
of corn. The reason given by John for Christ's absence from this 
Passover is rendered the more cogent from what we have seen of 
Herod's state of mind ; and there seems every reason to believe that 
our Lord's presence at Jerusalem would have brought on that very 
conjuncture of Herod, Pilate, and the Jewish rulers, which occurred a 
year later, when His time was come. The season gives a double 
significance to the miracle by which Christ fed the people in the 
desert, while their brethren at Jerusalem were eating the unleavened 
bread of human manufacture, and also to the subsequent discourse in 
which Jesus revealed himself as the true bread of life that had come 
down from heaven. 

That discourse forms a marked epoch in his ministry. It is very 
affecting to observe how, the more Christ multiplied miracles before 
his Galilean followers, the further were they from receiving his 
spiritual teaching. The personal benefits they had now so long been 
in the habit of receiving came to be every thing to them ; and the 
witness which the works bore to Christ was only valued as exciting 
selfish hopes in them. It was to see and to profit by more miracles, 
that they ran after him round the lake; and this last wonder of his 
feeding five thousand men, besides women and children, with five 
barley-loaves and two small fishes, leaving twelve baskets of frag- 
ments to be gathered up, while it convinced them that he was the 
prophet predicted by Moses, excited proud hopes of independence in- 
stead of humble faith in him, and they were ready to take him by 
force and make him king. On this first mention of such a design, 
we may well consider what it involved. It was no offer of a peace- 
ful succession, made by a united people. With Judaea governed by a 
Roman procurator, and Galilee held by Herod at the pleasure of the 
emperor — with factions among the Jews themselves ready to support 
the Idumaaan dynasty, and even to cry out, " We have no king but 
Caesar," — His consent would have been the signal for a war such as 
burst out under Nero. And here we may doubtless see one of those 
occasions on which Jesus himself was tempted, though without sin. 
The people of Galilee repeated the offer which Satan had made on 
the Mo/int of Temptation ; and from Satan it came this time also, 
though made through them. History furnishes its memorable exam- 
ples, how hard such an offer is to refuse ; and that there was a real 
conflict in our Saviour's mind is proved by his departing alone into 
a mountain to pray. But first, while he sent away the people, the 
disciples, who, we may be quite sure, were ready to take the same 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 



645 



part, were directed, not without great reluctance, to recross the lake 
to Bethsaida. 

The night fell, and Jesus watched the lonely vessel, tossed about 
by the waves and adverse wind, an emblem of the love and vigilance 
which attends his people in the voyage of life. As the night reached 
its darkest, and the storm its highest, they thought, doubtless almost 
with despair, of their rescue from the like peril when Jesus was with 
them in the ship ; but they had to learn that he helps when the time 
seems all but past, and the means exhausted. It was only in the 
fourth watch of the night that he came to them, walking on the 
waves; and even then he made as though he would have passed 
them; but their cry of fresh 
terror at the supposed appari- 
tion was answered by the 
cheering announcement of his 
presence. Then, as so often 
happens at an unhoped deliver- 
ance, presumption succeeded to 
despair; and Peter, the repre- 
sentative of this feeling among 
the Apostles, was saved by 
Jesus from perishing in the f 
waves on which he had had jjK| 
the rashness, but not the faith, ' 
to walk. How much they 
needed such lessons we learn 
from the statement of Mark, 



that, even while confessing 
Him to be the Son of God, 
" their heart was hardened " to 
the true meaning of the mira- 
cles of the loaves. We cannot, therefore, wonder at the same error 
among the people, who sought Jesus, as he himself says, not because 
they had seen the miracles, but because they had eaten of the loaves. 
Meanwhile, as soon as Jesus was received by the disciples into the 
ship, its voyage came to an end at "the land of Gennesaret," the 
fertile plain upon the western shore, which gave to the lake one of 
its names, and in which Capernaum stood. From all the cities or 
villages of that fair region, the wonted crowds flocked to Jesus as 
soon as they heard of his landing, bringing their sick and afflicted ; 
and numbers were healed by merely touching the border of his gar- 




PETER SAVED BY JESUS. 



646 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

merit as he passed by. He was found at Capernaum by the people 
who had been left on the other side of the lake, and who had 
recrossed it in boats on the following day. Then followed the con- 
troversy, in which, notwithstanding what they had just seen, they 
required some new sign to match that of the manna in the wilderness. 
In reply, he teaches them the doctrine that spiritual life can only be 
received by spiritually eating his flesh and drinking his blood. This 
called forth the full hostility of the carnal mind to spiritual truth, 
even among his disciples. Many of them said, "This is a hard 
saying; who can hear it?" not so much hard to understand as to 
receive with heartfelt sympathy. And now he plainly told them, 
from his own superhuman knowledge, that there were unbelievers 
among them ; and many of his disciples finally forsook him. Then 
the twelve, by the mouth of Peter, answer his appeal, " Will ye also 
go away?" by the solemn profession of their faith in him, as Christ, 
the Son of God, and the only teacher of eternal life ; but Jesus warns 
even them that " one of them had a devil," alluding thus plainly, for 
the first time, to the treason of Judas Iscariot. The defection of the 
great body of Christ's disciples, leaving only the Twelve in constant 
attendance upon him, marks the last period of his Galilean ministry 
as a season of special intercourse with them, in preparation for their 
apostolic work. 

Among the followers of Jesus during these transactions we have 
repeated mention of " the Jews," a term which, in the records of his 
controversial* teachings, generally denotes the leaders of the two great 
parties, and more especially the Pharisees and Scribes, for the 
Sadducees seem as yet to have regarded the new teacher with scorn- 
ful indifference. Many of these came from Jerusalem and Judaea, 
expressly to watch him ; and their hatred must have been inflamed 
afresh by such teaching as that just related. The words of St. John 
imply that a new conspiracy against Jesus was formed by the rulers 
at this Passover, for which reason he remained in Galilee six months 
longer, till the Feast of Tabernacles. Disappointed by his absence, 
more of the Scribes and Pharisees went to meet him on his own 
ground ; and ^their fault-finding gave him the opportunity of de- 
nouncing the vain traditions by which they annulled the spirit of the 
law, while adding to its burdensome obligations. 

But they had probably another object besides controversy, to stir 
up Herod against Jesus, who, therefore, withdrew for a time out of 
Herod's jurisdiction, first into t 1 e region of Tyre and Sidon, and 
afterward to the Decapolis. His stay in Phoenicia was marked by 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 64Y 

that condescension to the prayer of the Syro-Phcenician woman (a 
native of the country, but of Greek education, the counterpart to the 
woman of Sarepta in the time of Elijah), which was the first case of 
his performing a miracle for, and recognizing the faith of, an actual 
heathen; for the centurion already mentioned was a proselyte. 
Passing round the north side of the Lake of Galilee to the Decapolis, 
Jesus healed a deaf and dumb man, with many others, and again 
repeated the miracle of feeding the multitudes that followed him, — 
4000 men, besides women and children, — with seven loaves and a 
few small fishes, seven baskets full of fragments being taken up. 
Crossing the lake to Magdala (or rather Magadan), in the district of 
Dalmanutha, he again encountered the Pharisees, this time in league 
with the Sadducees and Herodians, who asked and were refused a 
" sign," some great wonder wrought expressly for them, to prove that 
he was the Christ. He answers them as he had answered a similar 
request before : " the sign of the prophet Jonas " was all that they 
should have. His resurrection after a death of three days should be 
the great sign, and yet in another sense no sign should be given them, 
for they should neither see it nor believe it. The unnatural alliance 
between Pharisee and Sadducee is worthy of remark. The zealots 
of tradition and the political partisans of Herod joined together for 
once with a common object of hatred. After they h'ad departed, 
Jesus crossed the lake with his disciples, and, combining, perhaps, 
for the use of the disciples the remembrance of the feeding of the 
four thousand with that of the conversation they had just heard, warned 
them to " beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of 
Herod. " So little, however, were the disciples prepared for this, that 
they mistook it for a reproof for having brought only one loaf with 
them. They had forgotten the five thousand and the four thousand, 
or they would have known that where He was, natural bread could 
not fail them. It was needful to explain to them that the leaven of 
the Pharisees was the doctrine of those who had made the Word of 
God of none effect by traditions which appearing to promote religion 
really destroyed it, and the leaven of the Sadducees was the doctrine 
of those who, under the show of superior enlightenment, removed the 
foundations of the fear of God by denying the future state. He used 
the same figure on another occasion, explaining that by " the leaven 
of the Pharisees" he meant hypocrisy; that of the Sadducees and 
Herodians was an ungodly worldly policy. 

0Q From the eastern side of the Lake of Tiberias, Jesus 
went with his disciples up the course of the Jordan, staying 



648 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

at Bethsaida, where he healed a blind man, to Csesarea Philippi, near 
the sources of the river. This city, at the very extremity of the 
Holy Land, marking the northernmost limit of our Saviour's travels, 
was the scene of some of the most memorable events in his course ; 
events that were designed to prepare the disciples for the consumma- 
tion now rapidly approaching. We have seen, and we might, had 
the plan of this work permitted detailed exposition, have traced much 
more minutely, the gradual development of the faith of the disciples 
in their Lord. Now the time was come for a full and intelligent pro- 
fession of their faith. Having first asked them about the various 
opinions that the people entertained of him, some saying that he was 
John the Baptist, others that he was Elijah, and others that he was 
Jeremiah or one of the old prophets risen again, he makes the direct 
appeal to them : — " But whom say ye that I am ? " Without waiting 
to consult the rest, Peter answers, " Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God." This formula was not uttered now for the first 
time ; but on no former occasion does it seem to have expressed a 
conviction so deep and spiritual. It calls forth a blessing upon 
Simon, as having spoken by the express revelation of God ; and then 
is added that great saying concerning the foundation of Christ's 
Church, which has been perverted into the corner-stone of the Romish 
faith. Its tiHie interpretation is to be found in the Hebrew custom 
of giving significant names, not solely, or even chiefly, to describe 
qualities in the persons who bore them, but to commemorate truths in 
which they were concerned. It is simply absurd to insist on finding 
in the words, " Thou art Peter" the necessary antecedent to "on (Ms 
rock will I build my Church." The true connection is this: — " Thou 
art rightly called Peter, for thou hast uttered a confession which 
embodies the foundation of Christian truth, the divine nature and the 
true Messiahship of Jesus Christ; and upon this rock will I build my 
Church." The concurrent testimony, both of prophecy and of the 
New Testament, points to Christ himself as the Rock, and the only 
foundation of his Church; and surely it must be his strength, and 
not Peter's, which forms a basis too steadfast for the powers of de- 
struction ("the gates of Hades") to prevail against! But still, in a 
secondary sense, the Apostles are spoken of, together with the Pro- 
phets, as the foundation on which the Church is built, but in sub- 
ordination to " Jesus Christ, the chief corner-stone ;" and in this sense 
Peter himself was one of the first stones of the edifice, of which he 
himself calls all believers " living stones." His position in the 
Church is then illustrated by another figure, which has been equally 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 649 

perverted ; as if the servant who has charge of the keys of a house 
were almost on a level with the master himself. The event furnished 
the simple and natural interpretation, when, on the day of Pentecost, 
Peter was the first to admit a multitude of the believing Jews, and 
afterward, in the house of Cornelius, a number of Gentile proselytes, 
into the Christian Church. He did both as the organ of the other 
Apostles, who shared his action in the first case, and confirmed it in 
the second ; for to them Christ afterward gave the same privilege 
that he now gave to Peter. The only distinction between him and 
the other Apostles is a priority in time, corresponding to the priority 
of his confession of Christ. As to the power of " binding and 
loosing," which is more fully expressed after our Saviour's resurrec- 
tion as the retention and remission of sins, its signification is a ques- 
tion too purely theological to be discussed here. 

And now, after commanding his disciples not yet to divulge the 
great truth they had confessed, he reveals to them the greater mystery 
of his death and resurrection ; but so little, even yet, were they pre- 
pared for such an issue of his course, that Peter, the very Apostle who 
had just been foremost in the confession of Christ, now took upon 
himself to remonstrate and protest, "Be it far from thee, Lord; this 
shall not be unto thee !" In these words Jesus sees another assault 
of Satan, using Peter's prejudices as a temptation to renounce His 
great work, and He rebukes him with the same stern authority as in 
their former conflict, " Get thee behind me, Satan !" Then, turning to 
his disciples, he warns them that they must all pass through the same 
temptation, and make the same choice between the world and himself, 
a choice on which depended the salvation or loss of their own souls. 
They must decide to suffer with him upon earth, if they would reign 
with him hereafter. For he would surely come in the glory of God 
and with the holy angels, to reward every man according to his works, 
and then he would be ashamed of those who were now ashamed of him. 
Nay ! so certain was all this, and to them of such supreme moment, 
that some of them would in that day taste of eternal death ; another 
of the allusions which we have already seen our Saviour make to the 
character of Judas. 

Having thus received a foretaste of "the sufferings of Christ," the 
minds of the disciples were soon relieved by a glimpse of "the glory 
that should follow." Just a week after the above discourse, Jesus 
took with him Peter, James, and John, the three disciples who were 
also to be the witnesses of his agony at Gethsemane, to behold a vision 
of his heavenly glory. The scene is traditionally identified with 



650 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Mount Tabor, but this cannot have been the place : all we can infer 
from the Gospel narrative is, that it was a high mountain near to 
Csesarea Philippi. His first object was prayer ; and as he prayed, his 
face and raiment were transfigured to the same glorious majesty and 
brilliant whiteness in which he appeared to John long afterward at 
Patmos. With him were seen in glory Moses and Elijah, the law- 
giver and reformer of the Old Covenant; and their converse with 
him concerning u his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusa- 
lem " showed to the disciples the harmony of the Law and the Pro- 
phets with the Gospel in regarding Christ's sufferings as the prelude 
to his glory ; and that that glory would be shared by his followers, 
was intimated by the glory in which Moses and Elijah themselves 
appeared. Xor was there wanting a sensible proof of the presence of 
God the Father ; but instead of the " blackness, and darkness, and 
tempest," amid which God had revealed himself both to Moses and 
Elijah upon Mount Sinai, it was a bright cloud out of which a voice 
came, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; 
hear ye him." The disciples, who had given way, while the Master 
was praying, to a supernatural drowsiness like that which overcame 
them at Gethsemane, awoke just in time for Peter to express the fond 
desire to remain amid such bliss, when the voice was heard from the 
cloud, the vision vanished, and they were left alone with Jesus. As 
they came down from the mountain, he charged them not to tell what 
they had seen, till after his resurrection ; and he explained, in reply 
to their inquiries about the coming of Elijah, before the Messiah, that 
Elijah had already come in the person of John the Baptist, and had 
been persecuted by those very Scribes who had taught men to expect 
him, and so the Son of Man would also suffer. 

The three disciples descended with Jesus to the world beneath, in a 
double sense ; for a most humiliating scene was enacting in their ab- 
sence. The remaining Apostles had attempted to heal a frightful case 
of demoniacal possession; and their failure had subjected them to the 
scornful objections of the Scribes, and the unbelief of the people. 
After rebuking that unbelief, and bringing the father of the sufferer, 
who had expressed it, to cry with tears, " Lord, I believe : help thou 
my unbelief," Jesus cast out the furious demon ; and then told his 
disciples, in private, the secret of their failure, because of their unbe- 
lief, and the unbounded power of faith : " This kind goeth not out, 
but by prayer and fasting." Once more, soon after this, Jesus foretold 
to the disciples his betrayal and death, and his resurrection the third 
day after; but they were unwilling to accept the plain meaning of his 
words, and afraid to ask him for an explanation. 



SEQUEL OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 651 

Jesus now returned with the Twelve, for the last time, to the shores 
of the Lake of Galilee. At Capernaum he released Peter by a mira- 
cle from his difficulty about the tribute-money, the "didrachm," 
which corresponds in value to the half-shekel, and seems therefore to 
have been the poll-tax of that amount, which was paid for the Temple- 
service. The piece of money, a " stater/' which Peter found in the 
fish's mouth, was equal to a shekel, and therefore the precise amount 
of the tax for his Master and himself. The exemption which Jesus 
claimed, though he waived it lest he should offend the Jews, may be 
regarded as an assertion of his divinity. 

From the great lessons they had so lately received, the Apostles 
seem as yet to have derived only a vague idea that their Master's 
kingdom was at hand, and that they must not lose its advantages to 
themselves. The contest which arose among them for precedence 
gave an occasion for our Saviour's teaching, by the pattern of a little 
child whom he set in the midst of them, the great lessons of humility, 
brotherly love, forgiveness and forbearance ; to which he added that 
of reverent regard for children, just because they hold out to us an ex- 
ample of the state of innocence from which we have fallen, and which 
must be regained, by repentance and conversion, before we can enter 
the kingdom of heaven. And thus the last lesson which our Lord 
taught in Galilee re-echoes the first with which he opened the Sermon 
on the Mount. Indeed, the whole discourse, which is reported most 
fully by St. Matthew, forms a most impressive climax to the teaching 
which was so begun. Christ's own example, in coming to seek and 
save the lost, is held forth as the great motive to compassionate love 
and mutual forgiveness. The power of binding and loosing is now 
extended to all the Apostles ; his presence is promised in all their 
assemblies; and his Father's answer to all their prayers. Once more 
the solemn warning is repeated, concerning resistance to sin, and deci- 
sion between the Master and the world; and the note of future judg- 
ment, already struck in the Sermon on the Mount, concludes the 
whole ; but for the gentle final words recorded by St. Mark : — " Have 
peace one with another." 

Immediately after this the first two Evangelists mention the final 
departure of Jesus from Galilee into that part of Perssa which be- 
longed to the province of Judaea. But, in fact, the interval between 
the departure from Galilee, and the retirement into Peraea, is to be 
filled up by Christ's visit to the Feast of Tabernacles, and many other 
important incidents which are related by Luke and John. 



652 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XXXIII. • 

THE LAST SIX MONTHS OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY; FROM THE FEAST OF TABER- 
NACLES, A. D. 29, TO HIS FOURTH PASSOVER, A. D. 30. 

jUK Lord's ministry in Galilee had lasted probably for a year 
and a half, without a visit to Jerusalem, when the approach 
of the Feast of Tabernacles called for a decision whether he 
would go up to it. The tone of his recent discourses proved 
that his work in Galilee was done. The hollow, selfish, and 
worldly motives of the great bulk of his followers had been exposed, 
and his few sincere disciples had received some training for their 
work, and had been taught to expect the issue of his course. 
It only remained to give the Jews at Jerusalem one more 
opportunity for repentance and faith, and then the time would come 
for him to be oifered. The general expectation, with which at this 
juncture his course was watched, shows itself* in the challenge of his 
brethren, who were as yet not full believers in him, to put his claims 
to a more open proof by showing himself* in Judsea. But, with the 
answer that his time was not yet come, be bade them go up to the 
feast without him, while he remained in Galilee for some days, and 
then went up " as it were in secret." 

This secrecy seems to refer to his travelling by way of Samaria, 
instead of by the more frequented route through Peraea, which, though 
longer, was usually taken by the Jews of Judaea and Galilee, to avoid 
intercourse with the Samaritans. The choice of this route, and the 
previous delay, may have been intended to disconcert some plan for 
seizing him on the journey ; as we afterward find that his sudden 
appearance in the midst of the feast made his arrest impracticable. It 
also gave one more day of grace to the Samaritans ; but for the most 
part in vain, as we see in the case of the first villages, to which Christ 
sent forward messengers, but the people would not receive him, as he 
was on his way to Jerusalem. The sons of Zebedee, who would have 
called down fire from heaven, as Elijah did, to punish the insult, 
were checked by the rebuke : — " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye 
are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to 
save them." To various persons who met him, offering to become 
his disciples, but pleading some excuse for delay, he taught the neces- 



END OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 653 

sity of leaving all, to follow him. During his progress through 
Samaria, he sent forth seventy disciples, two and two, to go before 
him, preaching the Gospel in every place that he designed to visit. 
This differed in several points from the previous commission of the 
Apostles. The number of the Seventy, and the scene of their mission, 
Samaria, alike indicated that the time was at hand for preaching the 
Gospel to the heathen ; whereas the number of the Apostles corre- 
sponded to the twelve tribes of Israel, to whom their commission also 
restricted them; nor had the Seventy received the special training of 
the Twelve. Some have also seen a significance in the sending forth 
of the Twelve at the season of the Passover, the beginning of the har- 
vest, and of the Seventy at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, the 
end of all the labors of the year. In other respects, their instructions 
were the same ; and they may be regarded as, in spirit, those which 
should ever guide Christ's ministers. Few in comparison to the 
spiritual harvest, they were bidden to go forth praying the Lord of 
the harvest to send more laborers ; exposed to the malice of men, like 
lambs among wolves, they were to preserve their meekness, and to 
rely on his protection who had sent them. They must neither make 
provision for the journey nor stay to exchange salutations by the way ; 
but on entering any house, they were to pronounce Peace upon it, and 
peace should abide there if they were worthily received, or return to 
them if they were rejected. In the same house they were to remain, 
eating and drinking what was set before them, "for" — said Christ, 
laying down the principle afterward so fully developed by St. Paul — 
41 the laborer is worth his wages." They were to deal in like manner 
with the cities they visited ; remaining in those that received them, 
but, where they were rejected, wiping off the very dust from their 
feet as a witness against the city. This sentence gives occasion to 
Jesus to repeat the doom of Woe ! upon the favored cities of Galilee, 
on which he had now finally turned his back — Chorazin, Bethsaida, 
and especially Capernaum. He concludes with the assurance that 
the reception, whether of obedience or contempt, given to them would 
be regarded as given to himself. 

Meanwhile his movements and character were the great subject of 
discussion at Jerusalem. While all were asking, " Where is he ? " 
some said, " He is a good man ;" others, " Nay, but he deceiveth the 
people." But all spoke privately, for fear of the rulers. It was 
about the middle of the feast when he appeared, teaching in the 
Temple. To the expressions of wonder at the learning shown by Q 
Galilean peasant, he replied by declaring his doctrine to be not his 



654 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

• 
own, but His that sent him, promising too that whoever desired to do 

God's will should be taught these truths. He denounced the con- 
spiracy against his life on the old charge of having broken the 
Sabbath by the miracle performed on his previous visit to Jerusalem. 
His boldness and impunity raised the question, whether the rulers 
knew that he was indeed the Christ ; but still the people were per- 
plexed by his humble and apparently well-known origin, so opposed 
to the mystery with which they expected the Christ to come. His 
miracles, however, which it was felt that the Christ himself could 
not surpass, gained many converts; and the Pharisees and chief 
priests at length sent officers to apprehend him. As they watched 
their opportunity, Jesus continued to discourse in language more and 
more perplexing to his adversaries, till, on the last and greatest day 
of the feast, when the ceremony was performed of fetching water from 
the well of Siloam, and pouring it on the altar, while the priest sang 
the words, " With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salva- 
tion," he proclaimed himself the giver of the water of life, meaning 
thereby the Holy Spirit. Upon this the controversy among the 
people grew warmer. Some said that he was the expected prophet ; 
some that he was the Christ; while others again objected his Gali- 
lean origin, pleading that Christ was to come of the seed of David, 
and from the town of Bethlehem. His more vehement opponents 
wished to apprehend him, but neither they nor the officers risked the 
attempt. Xay, carried away themselves by the power of his teaching, 
the officers returned to their employers with the words, "Xever 
man spake like this man." As the rulers began to vent curses on 
all his followers, Xicodemus, the secret disciple, who was one of their 
number, ventured to remind them that the law forbade the con- 
demning of a man unheard ; but he only brought suspicion and taunts 
upon himself, for taking the part of a Galilean. This eventful day 
was concluded by the dispersion of the people to their homes, while 
Jesus retired to the Mount of Olives. 

On his reappearance in the Temple, the next morning, a 
subtle snare was laid for him. The Pharisees and Scribes 
brought to him a woman taken in adultery, and, quoting the law of 
Moses, that such should be stoned, asked for his judgment of the 
case, "But what sayest thou?" Either, they thought, he must 
decide against the law, and appear at once a blasphemer of Moses 
and a partisan of gross sin, or incur popular odium by condemning 
the culprit to death. But Christ well knew how to repel such attacks 
by an appeal to higher principles, which at once justified his conduct 



END OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 655 

and condemned his assailants. The same law which adjudged the 
guilty to death required the witnesses to cast the first stones, in token 
of their abhorrence of the crime. But who dared do this, if conscious 
that his guilt was the same ? And such was the prevalent corruption, 
that all the accusers were in this case. So, without answering them, 
he stooped down and wrote in the sand of the Temple court, what 
we are not told, but we may imagine passages of Scripture which 
would carry conviction to the most hardened among them ; and then 
rising up, he says, " He that is without sin among you, let him first 
cast a stone at her," and continued his writing. They slunk away, 
from the eldest to the youngest ; and as no accuser was left, Jesus 
dismissed the woman with the words, " Neither do I condemn thee : 
go and sin no more," — an absolution from punishment, which she 
might, by penitence and amendment, convert into the full pardon of 
her sin. Two plain inferences .from this transaction deserve notice. 
The tacit confession of gross sin by the Scribes and Pharisees does 
away with the idea that they 'were honest though mistaken enthusi- 
asts for what they deemed truth and righteousness ; and the fact that 
Christ does not disclaim the authority to judge the case — nay, assumes 
it in his last words — gives another proof of his divinity. 

Then follows another controversy with the Jews, whose reiterated 
objection, that Jesus bare witness to himself, is met by the reply that 
the Father bore witness with him. Whatever there may seem to be 
of narrow technicality in the allusion to the law which required two 
witnesses, belongs solely to their objection, which he repels on their 
own ground. As their opposition became the more obstinate, he the 
more plainly traced it to their corrupt nature, in bondage to sin ; and 
in reply to their claim of freedom, as the children of Abraham, he 
denounced them as children of the devil, because they did his works, 
especially in seeking to kill Christ; while he not only proclaimed 
himself before Abraham in dignity and glory, but assumed to himself 
the great title of the self-existent Jehovah — " Before Abraham was, I 
AM." At this they took up stones, to stone him as a blasphemer; 
but he, who patiently suffered when he was condemned even by the 
show of law, conveyed himself by his miraculous power out of the 
midst of the excited rabble, and so left the Temple. 

He seems, however, not yet to have left the city itself; for the order 
of St. John's Gospel hardly permits of our referring to any other time 
than this the great miracle of healing a man blind from his birth, 
which furnishes a critical example of a miracle tried by every possible 
test. The act itself was prefaced by a rebuke of the hasty judgment 



656 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of the disciples, curious to know whether the man's blindness was to 
be ascribed to his parents' sin or to his own. Jesus, on the other 
hand, saw in him ouly a fit object for the divine work, which he has- 
tened to perform while it was yet time, alluding to the approaching 
end of his course in the memorable saying : — " I must work the works 
of him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man 
can work." Then, giving a high meaning to the miracle by declaring 
himself the Light of the World, he spat on the ground and made clay 
of the spittle, with which having anointed the man's eyes, he sent him 
to wash them at the pool, outside the city, which bore the appropriate 
name of Siloam, that is, Sent. In this proceeding we have, united 
with the divine power by which the miracle was wrought, the indica- 
tion of his command over natural means, and an act to be performed 
by the sufferer himself (as in the case of Naaman) which at once tested 
his faith, and called the attention of those who beheld him going to 
the pool with besmeared eyes, and returning with all the joy of 
restored sight. Many of these had long seen the blind man begging 
at his accustomed seat, and at first they doubted if it were he, or an- 
other like him. Soon agreed that it was he, they learned from him 
the manner of the miracle which, he said, had been wrought upon his 
sight by " a man called Jesus," of whom he could not tell where he 
was, — so plain it is that Christ was a stranger to the man. The wan- 
dering neighbors brought him before the Pharisees, whose jealous en- 
mity again, as in the miracle at Bethesda, found a pretext in the fact 
that it was the Sabbath day. The man answered their questions with 
the same simple story that he had told to his neighbors. The growth 
of conviction among themselves, already hinted at in the doubt — 
" Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him ?" — was 
now shown in an open division of opinion : some repeated the old 
objection, "This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sab- 
bath day;" while others rejoined with the unanswerable plea, "How 
can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?" They could only agree 
in throwing the onus of the decision on the poor man, who declared at 
once that he believed Jesus to be a prophet. They now tried to throw 
doubt on the reality of his former state ; and thereby only brought 
out decisive evidence. The caution of his parents, who would not 
say that their son had been healed by Christ, for fear of excommuni- 
cation, added weight to their plain testimony that he had been born 
blind. Their next attempt to extort from the man himself, under the 
solemn sanction of an oath, a confession that he had been leagued in 
an imposture with a man whom they knew to be a sinner, was discon- 




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657 



653 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

certed by the answer, " Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not : 
one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." As their 
importunities turned to revilings, he boldly reproved his judges for 
their unbelief, and, in his simple faith, declared the great principle — 
" If this man were not of God, he could do nothing." Exasperated 
at being thus taught by one whom their prejudice regarded as born in 
sin, they cast him out of the synagogue. But his excommunication 
only made the man's faith in Christ complete, and called forth from 
Jesus the sentence upon the Pharisees that they were the truly blind, 
given up to judicial blindness, the more intense because it was wil- 
ful : — " If ye were blind, ye should have no sin : but ye say, We see ; 
therefore your sin remaineth." 

Upon this follows the parable in which he represents himself as the 
Good Shepherd, who knows his own sheep, and preserves to life 
eternal those given to him by his Father, by laying down his own life 
for them, while the hireling (the type of the Jewish rulers) only 
thinks of saving his own life by flight. And in speaking of the great 
voluntary sacrifice he was about to complete, he at once asserted his 
own divine power, foretold his resurrection, and rebuked the impo- 
tence of their murderous malice : — " Therefore doth my Father love 
me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man 
taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay 
it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have 
I received of my Father." At all this, the division about him among 
the people became still more vehement, some saying that he had a 
devil and was mad, others that both his words and deeds disproved 
the charge. 

From these transactions at the Feast of Tabernacles, St. John passes 
at once over a period of two months, of which more will be said pres- 
ently, to the Feast of the Dedication, in the winter ; at which, as Jesus 
was walking in the portico of the Temple, named after Solomon, he 
was pressed by the Jews to relieve them from all doubt, and to tell 
them plainly whether he was the Christ. He replied by reminding 
them of what he had told them before, and of the works he had done ; 
and, recurring to the parable concerning his sheep, he accounts for 
their obstinate unbelief because they were none of his, and re-asserts 
more plainly than ever his equality with the Father. Once more 
they took up stones, to stone him as a blasphemer ; but he vindicated 
his claims from the Scriptures and from his works; and when they 
tried to take him, he again escaped, and retired to Bethabara beyond 
the Jordan, the place where John had baptized. There he remained 




< 



END OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 659 

for some time, and many were lead to believe in him by comparing 
his miracles with John's predictions. From this place of retirement 
Jesus was summoned to Bethany by the tidings of the illness of Laza- 
rus ; and, after raising him from the dead, our Lord again retired to 
"a country near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim," where he 
remained with his disciples till the approach of his last Passover. Six 
days before the Passover, he is again at Bethany ; and here the narra- 
tive of St. John falls in again with the other three Gospels. 

Now these brief notices by St. John cover a period of about six 
months — two from the Feast of Tabernacles to the Feast of Dedica- 
tion, and four from the latter to the Passover — concerning which St. 
Matthew and St. Mark are almost silent ; but on turning to St. Luke, 
we find it necessary to place in this interval that large section which 
contains some of the most striking parables and most impressive 
discourses recorded in his Gospel. The three Evangelists all notice 
the departure of Christ from Galilee for Judsea ; and the two former 
then pass on, with only one incident between, to the events which 
Luke places just before our Lord's final return to Jerusalem, conclud- 
ing with the healing of the blind men at Jericho, in which we have 
a concurrence of place as well as time. 

The two months between the Feast of Tabernacles and that of the 
Dedication seem to have been spent partly in Jerusalem and partly in 
its neighborhood, especially in that happy home at Bethany, the house 
of Lazarus, and his sisters Martha and Mary. Even here there were 
differences of character; but Christ knew how to use and improve 
them. The zealous, active Martha, who seems to have been the elder 
sister, was the first to receive Jesus into the house, where her gentle 
sister Mary sat at his feet and heard his word. Busied with the cares 
of hospitality, in which she desired to show such a guest unusual honor, 
Martha appealed to Jesus to command her sister's help. But he as- 
sured her that all her anxiety was superfluous, compared to the one 
thing which alone is needful, and Mary had chosen that good part, 
which would be hers forever, when all cares about the body should 
have ceased. Though Martha needed the lesson, as she afterward 
needed a rebuke to that impatience which often goes with zeal, we 
must not misunderstand the narrative, as if she were altogether in the 
wrong. Her zeal was honored in its turn ; and she had an equal 
share with her brother and sister in the Lord's affection. 

The highest proof of this affection was furnished by that 
which is at the same time the greatest of our Saviour's mira- 
cles. Driven, as we have seen, from Jerusalem by renewed plots 




660 



CHRIST RAISING LAZARUS. 



END OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 661 

against his life at the Feast of the Dedication, he retired beyond the 
Jordan, to the place where John first baptized, and remained there for 
some time receiving many new disciples. He seems to have been still 
at Bethabara, when he received tidings of what he knew to be the 
mortal illness of his beloved friend Lazarus. It would be folly to 
attempt to relate, in other words, that most pathetic of all the records 
that human language has ever embodied. Our Lord gave the crown- 
ing testimony of his own works to his supreme power over life and 
death, by restoring life to a body upon which corruption had laid its 
hold ; and he taught the full significance of the miracle by the words ; 
— " I am the Resurrection and the Life : he that believeth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth 
and believeth in me shall never die." 

The miracle was witnessed by many of the Jews, who had come out 
of Jerusalem to Bethany (the distance being only two miles) to console 
the bereaved sisters. Even the deep distress of Jesus at his friend's 
death had given some of them occasion to express their unbelieving 
cavils ; and, while some were convinced by the miracle, others went 
away to give information to the Pharisees. A council was at once 
summoned ; and the discordant religious views of the different sects 
were overcome by the common alarm, lest Christ's success should pro- 
voke the jealousy of Rome, and bring down destruction on the nation. 
Caiaphas, the high-priest, the leader of the rulers, took up the argu- 
ment of political expediency, and proposed that one man should be 
given up to death as a substitue for the whole people. These words 
expressed a meaning far deeper than he himself understood ; and his 
suggestion of a sacrifice to save the people from the anger of Caesar 
was in fact a prophecy, which the Holy Spirit uttered through him as 
the head of the nation, of the atonement which the death of Christ 
should make for the sins of all the world and the common salvation 
of all God's people. From that hour the death of Jesus was resolved 
on ; and the only hindrance to its accomplishment was God's purpose 
that the sacrifice should be offered at the Passover. To this end Jesus 
withdrew to Ephraim in the wilderness, and remained there with his 
disciples. Thence he seems to have withdrawn beyond the Jordan, 
perhaps to place himself within Herod's jurisdiction ; for he was 
clearly in Persea when he commenced that final movement toward 
Jerusalem, which forms the turning-point in the narrative by St. 
Luke. 

As he proceeded leisurely through Persea toward Jerusalem, teach- 
ing in the villages on the way, he was warned of Herod's designs on 



662 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

his life. The information was given by the Pharisees, evidently with 
the view of hastening our Lord's return within their own reach — 
"Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee" — and his 
answer involved a keen rebuke of their treacherous affectation of regard 
for his safety. He bids them go themselves to tell Herod that His 
time was indeed at hand, but that his course was not to be shortened 
by the wiles of " that fox." His death was to be accomplished by the 
open violence of his own countrymen at Jerusalem, where former 
prophets had been slain, " for it cannot be that a prophet perish out 
of Jerusalem V And then, apostrophizing the city, to which his face 
was now turned, he uttered that exquisitely pathetic lamentation, 
which he afterward repeated in sight of its walls. His ministry had led 
him thither at least four times, and this visit was to be his last, the last 
visit of any prophet; and thenceforth the place which God had chosen 
for his house would be left desolate, and they should see him no more, 
till the day when, in a sense yet to be accomplished, they should say, 
" Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." 

To this progress through Persea should probably be referred those 
most impressive parables and lessons which occupy the 14th, loth, 
16th, 17th, and 18th chapters of St. Luke, the last few of which, as 
already observed, bring this Gospel again into connection with those 
of Matthew and Mark. As bearing upon the course of our Saviour's 
history, we should especially notice the warning which he gives his 
disciples, now for the third time, and in greater detail than before, 
of his passion, death, and resurrection ; and his answer to the ambi- 
tious request of the sons of Zebedee, which taught that all must suffer 
with him before they reign with him. 

He now crossed the Jordan, and advanced toward Jerusalem by 
the high road through Jericho. That city was the scene of the heal- 
ing of two blind men, who saluted Jesus as the Son of David, and 
of the conversion of the publican Zacchseus. At length, while the 
Jews, who had already assembled at Jerusalem to purify themselves 
before the Passover, were wondering whether he would come, and the 
chief priests and Pharisees had commanded his first appearance to be 
announced to them, that he might be apprehended, he arrived at 
Bethany six days before the Passover, that is, on Friday the 8th of 
Nisan, the eve of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was spent at Bethany; 
and to the evening succeeding it we should probably refer (though 
the matter has been much disputed) the supper in the house of Simon 
the leper, at which Martha served, while Lazarus sat at table, and at 
which Mary anointed Christ in preparation for his burial. His 



END OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY. 663 

presence there was soon known at Jerusalem, and many of the Jews 
went out with the double motive of seeing Jesus, and Lazarus whom 
he had raised from the dead. The living proof of the miracle con- 
verted into believers many who had gone from curiosity. At this 
the Pharisees were doubly enraged ; and, perhaps, history records no 
example of infatuation equal to their resolve to put Lazarus as well 
as Jesus to death. This Sabbath was the ninth of Nisan, which in 
that year corresponded to March 31st of the Julian Calendar. The 
intervention of the Sabbath delayed the execution of the design till 
the following week, when Jesus at length "offered himself" publicly 
in the spirit of the prophecy: " Lo ! I come, to do thy will, O God." 



664 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE PASSION OF OUR LORD, FROM PALM SUNDAY TO EASTER EYE, APRIL 1ST 

TO APRIL 7TH, A. D. 30. 

HE great events of the succeeding eight days, including the 

" Passion Week," and " Easter Day," must be viewed as one 

connected series ; and the Evangelists enable us to trace the 

^ incidents of each day. In denoting the days for clearness' 

sake, by their present names, it must be remembered that 

the corresponding Jewish days began from sunset on the preceding 

evening. St. Luke gives us this general description of our Lord's 

proceedings on the first three days of the week : — " In the 

day-time he was teaching in the temple, and at night he 

went out and abode in the Mount of Olives." 

Palm Sunday, the 10th of Nisan (April 1st). — This was the day 
on which the lamb for the Passover was selected, to be kept up 
till the time of slaying it. In fulfilment of the type, as himself the 
Lamb of God, chosen before the foundation of the world but now 
made manifest, and anticipating the plans of his enemies to seize him, 
Christ prepared to present himself in the Temple at Jerusalem. But 
he came to the people also in another character, as the promised son 
of David, their rightful king and judge. In a most wondrous manner 
did he unite the assertion of his high claims with the meekness of the 
victim; while he abstained from giving any just offence to the 
Roman powers. The prophet Zechariah had both foretold the 
manner and explained the meaning of this the great advent of the 
Messiah : — " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter 
of Jerusalem : behold thy Kixg cometh unto thee : He is just, and 
having salvation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the 
foal of an ass." But there was none of the elaborate preparation 
which marks a royal entrance. Two disciples, sent forward from 
Bethany to Bethphage, a village higher up on the eastern slope of the 
Mount of Olives, found an ass tied up to a door at the meeting of 
two roads, with her colt, on which no man had yet ridden, and they 
had only to say to the owner, " The Lord hath need of them," to 
obtain them. Whether the owner was a disciple, or whether his 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 665 

mind was bowed at the moment to the Lord's will, is not explained. 
The only trappings of the ass were the coarse garments of the disci- 
ples, doubtless travel-stained and worn ; and so Jesus mounted the 
eastern slope of the Mount of Olives with far less of outward pomp 
than even David when he returned from exile. But he met with a 
reception apparently as joyful and as worthy of a restored monarch. 
The multitude who had come to the feast, hearing of his approach, 
and moved by the crowning miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, 
went forth to meet him, bearing in their hands the fronds of the 
palm-tree, the well-known sign of victory, and spreading their 
garments beneath his feet. As he began to descend the Mount, in 
full view of the Temple, all the disciples burst forth into a shout of 
joy, praising God for all the wondrous works that Christ had done, 
and the people took up the cry, in the prophetic words of David him- 
self, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David, that is, " The Lord pre- 
serve the Son of David." They blessed him as the King of Israel, 
head of the kingdom of their father David, coming in the name of 
Jehovah, and repeated the welcome with which the angels had 
heralded his birth. For the moment, the Pharisees thought that all 
their plots were frustrated, and said to each other, " Perceive ye how 
we prevail nothing? Behold, the world is gone after him." Some 
of them took courage to address him in an affected protest against the 
enthusiasm which endangered all concerned — " Master, rebuke thy 
disciples ! " And he answered, " I tell you that, if these should hold 
their peace, the stones would immediately cry out ! " 

In all this scene, there is more of the king than of the victim ; and 
this was in truth the first part of its complex character. We know, 
what was as yet hidden even from the disciples, that the eternal pur- 
pose of God for man's redemption demanded Christ's death before his 
triu mph ; and we dare not pry into the mystery of any possible alter- 
native. But to the Jewish people the alternative was now distinctly 
offered, for the last time, between the acceptance and the rejection of 
their spiritual king, and, even amid their shouts of triumph, the evil 
choice was made by the malice of the priests and the fickleness of the 
people. Reverting to the type of the Paschal Lamb ; as it was se- 
lected from the best of the flock, without spot or blemish, so the 
people's praises marked out Christ, on this 10th of Nisan, as the 
faultless Lamb of God. And he well knew the issue ; and so, pausing 
in his triumphal progress as he drew near to the city, he once more 
bewailed its rejection of the day of grace, and predicted its destruc- 
tion. 



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THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 667 

Entering into Jerusalem and the Temple, he still met with the 
same reception, the people crying, " This is Jesus, the prophet of 
Nazareth of Galilee !" and coming to him in the Temple to be healed. 
What most incensed the chief priests and Scribes was to hear the ehifa 
dren crying in the Temple, " Hosanna to the Son of David ;" and, as 
before, they asked him to silence them ; but he only reminded them 
of David's words, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou 
hast perfected praise." In the evening he returned to Bethany. 

Monday, the 11th of Nisan {April 2d). — Having on the preceding 
days shown himself in the Temple as King in Zion, amid the accla- 
mations of the people, Jesus now proceeded to the practical exertion 
of his authority by cleansing the Temple, as he had already done at 
the commencement of his ministry. There is, however, a striking 
difference between the two scenes, in the greater severity which he 
now used. Instead of the command to the dove-sellers, " Take these 
things hence," lie overthrew their seats as well as the tables of the 
money-changers. While there was a hope of reformation, he had 
been content with the language of remonstrance, " Make not my 
Father's house a house of merchandise ;" but now that the offenders 
had resumed a traffic doubtless as dishonest as it w T as unlawful, he 
takes up the stern language of the judge, not without a hint that the 
privileges they abused should be extended to strangers, who would 
use them better: "It is written, My house shall be called of all na- 
tions the house of prayer ; but ye have made it a den of thieves." He 
continued teaching in the Temple, the chief priests not daring to lay 
hands on him amid the attentive crowds. 

On the same day a striking incident had occurred, on his way from 
Bethany to Jerusalem in the morning. Eager to "be about his 
Father's work," and not to disappoint the people who "came early in 
the morning to hear him in the Temple," he left Bethany before the 
hour of breakfast, which in the East is late in the morning; and, be- 
ing hungry, he looked for some figs on one of the trees, which grew 
among the olives on the Mount, as is indicated by the name of Beth- 
phage (the House of Figs). This particular tree seems to have been 
distinguished by a show of leaves unusual for so early a period of the 
season, which gave the hope that there might perhaps be fruit among 
them j but he found none, " for the time of figs was not yet." So he 
uttered the doom against it, " Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward 
forever." The sentence took effect at once, and on the following 
morning the fig-tree was found dead. 

This is eminently a case in which the objections of a short-sighted 



668 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

infidelity carry with them their own refutation ; for even the lowest 
view of Christ's character, as confessedly among the best of men, is 
inconsistent with such an explosion of unreasonable anger as cursing 
a tree for not bearing fruit before its time ; nor could we understand 
God's hearing such a prayer ! But in truth, he saw in that luxuriant 
but barren fig-tree a fit type of the Jewish people, with the fair outward 
show of religion that they had preserved since the Captivity, but with 
no fruit fit for their Lord's use. The figure was the more appropri- 
ate in that very point which has been ignorantly converted into an 
objection. "The time of figs was not yet;" but neither properly was 
it the time of leaves. The fruit of the fig-tree is formed before the 
leaves open ; and when they are fully expanded, ripe fruit ought to 
be found behind them. So the tree was a fit type of that premature 
outward show of devotion with which he was even now welcomed by 
the people, the fruit of whose " Hosannas" would soon be "Crucify 
him !" and it was on such a deceitful show that his sentence really fell. 
In any case, let us remember that he was the Lord of the creation ; 
and this, his only miracle of destruction, furnished a most emphatic 
warning to the people who had often been described as trees of the 
Lord's planting, but as often warned that they would be rooted up, 
if they bare no fruit worthy of repentance. 

Tuesday, the 12th of Nisan (April 3d), is memorable as 
the last day of our Lord's public teaching ; and the story of 
it comprises an epitome of his controversies with his enemies, his 
most solemn lessons to his disciples and the people, and his pro- 
phesies and warnings concerning the end of the Mosaic dispensa- 
tion and of the world itself and his own final coming as the Judge of 
men. 

On the walk from Bethany to Jerusalem, the surprise of the dis- 
ciples at seeing the fig-tree already dead led our Saviour to inculcate 
faith as the means of working such wonders and of obtaining the 
answer to prayer, and mutual forgiveness as a condition of prayer 
being heard by God. On his entrance into the Temple, the chief 
priests and scribes, somewhat recovered from their astonishment of 
the previous day, demanded the authority by which he had acted. 
Their object was doubtless to elicit such a declaration of his divine 
power, as had already more than once exposed him to the danger of 
being stoned as a blasphemer. Jesus met the question by another, 
which, while it implied the answer, confounded their scheme. He 
asked them to tell him, first, whether the baptism of John was from 
heaven or of man. If they confessed the former, they stood convicted 






THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 669 

as unbelievers ; but, if they maintained the latter, they themselves 
would be exposed to the fury of the common people, who all held 
John to be a prophet. So they were put to silence ; and Jesus pointed 
the moral of the scene by the parable of the Two Sons and the Vine- 
yard. Still more striking pictures were given of their guilt in his 
rejection, and of God's purpose to transfer to others the privileges they 
had forfeited, by the parables of the Wicked Husbandmen and of the 
Wedding Garment. 

Some effort must now be made to check the influence of all these 
discourses on the people ; and each party of his enemies tried in turn 
both to gain a victory over him in argument, and to entrap him out 
of his own mouth. The first scheme, concerted by the Pharisees with 
the Herodians, who were friendly to the Roman power, was to con- 
vict him of treason to Caesar. But he pointed to the fact that their 
money bore the image and superscription of Caesar as a proof that, by 
accepting the emperor's protection, they had themselves decided the 
lawfulness of paying tribute, and he laid down for all such cases the 
great law, " Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God 
the things that are God's." So they were put to silence. 

The Sadducees made the next attempt, proposing a case which seemed 
to place the Mosaic law of levirate marriages in conflict with the doc- 
trine of the resurrection, and so tempting Jesus either to join them in 
denying the doctrine, or to discredit the authority of Moses. After 
sweeping away the fallacy by declaring the spirituality of the future 
state, Christ goes on to refute the Sadducean objections to the resur- 
rection out of the Pentateuch itself, which some suppose to have been 
the only part of the Scriptures that they received. The argument, 
from the fact of God's declaring himself to Moses as the God of Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, that " they all live unto God," may seem 
rather to bear upon the immortality of the soul than the resurrection 
of the body. But this was the very point of the Sadducean heresy. 
They acknowledged neither angel nor disembodied spirit, and so from 
their point of view the argument was conclusive. 

On learning the discomfiture of their rivals, the Pharisees made a 
last combined effort for victory. Their own teaching was full of subtle 
comparisons and minute distinctions between the various command- 
ments of God's law. They might well suppose that they were opening 
an unbounded field for controversy, and obtaining immense chances 
of advantage, by proposing the question, " Which is the (/rent command- 
ment in the law?" or, as it stands in St. Mark, " Which is the first 
commandment of all ?" The reply was at once our Lord's final triumph 



GTO HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

over error, and the very central truth of all his doctrine. Heedless 
of their refinements, he marks that as the first and great command- 
ment which is the sum and root of all the rest, Love to God ; created 
as a principle in the heart, imbuing the soul — the whole nature of the 
living man, formed into a sound doctrine by the mind, and carried out 
practically with all his strength. It deserves remark, that the tongue, 
which is so often the only instrument of professing love to God, is not 
here mentioned. To complete the lesson, and to leave no room for 
perverse distinctions between duties to God and man, our Lord makes 
the second commandment, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," 
the necessary result and complement of the first. The lesson was the 
more impressive and convincing, inasmuch as this double command- 
ment w r as not, though it might well have been, the Great Teacher's 
epitome of the law in his own words, but both its branches were to be 
found, in so many words, in the law of Moses. So in our Saviour's 
private exposition of the same doctrine to his disciples, he taught them 
that it was no new commandment, though it had a new life, as com- 
ing from himself, and as a principle created in their hearts by the 
Holy Spirit. 

This was the last lesson of positive doctrine that our Saviour taught 
in public. He had begun his ministry by declaring that he came to 
fulfil the law and the prophets : he closed it by announcing that 
" Love is the fulfilling of the Law." Scarcely less interesting than 
the truth itself is the effect it had on the hearers. The very Scribe 
who had proposed the question, seeing the harmony of the answer 
with Scripture, and catching a glimpse of its spiritual meaning which 
all his learning had never given him before, was the first to confess 
its truth in words worthy of being adopted as the Christian creed, and 
with a heartiness which called forth from Jesus the reply, " Thou art 
not far from the kingdom of heaven." There the sacred story leaves 
him : but may we not suppose him to be a type of many, who were 
prepared in heart, at this last hour of Christ's ministry, for the con- 
version which passed upon them after his ascension. 

Meanwhile our Lord's reply had finally silenced all the cavillers : 
" Xo man after that durst ask him any question." And now the time 
was come for him to question them, and to make a last exposure of 
their destructive system of hypocrisy, as a warning to his disciples 
and the people. Looking upon the Scribes and Pharisees, who had 
assembled in the Temple to enjoy their expected triumph, he proposed 
a question which at once implied his own double claim to the throne 
of David and of God, and left those who rejected it in either part 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 671 

without excuse : — How could Christ be at the same time David's 
Son, and his Lord, seated at the right hand of the throne of God ? 
The only possible answer was that full admission of the spiritual nature 
of the kingdom of Christ, which would have identified him in all 
points with Jesus, and rather than confess this, their obstinate silence 
rejected the last opportunity of offered grace. 

Then ensued our Lord's final outpouring of just indignation on the 
false and profligate teachers who had long led on the people, like the 
blind leading the blind, to the ruin they were soon to consummate. 
The woes denounced on the " Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," by 
the voice of God's own Son in his Holy Temple, in the character of a 
Judge, and as a foretaste of the last judgment, stand in a striking con- 
trast to the blessings uttered on humble disciples from the Mount, 
just as the crimes that called them down were the very opposite to 
the virtues there inculcated : saying and not doing, — binding grievous 
burdens for other men's shoulders, while they would not so much as 
touch them, — loving all marks of outward honor, even in the house 
where God only should be honored, and displaying all forms of osten- 
tatious devotion, while their lives were full of rapacity and vice ; con- 
verting proselytes to the law, only to make them twofold more the 
children of hell than themselves, — frittering away the most solemn ob- 
ligations, and at the same time extenuating the greatest crimes, by their 
false casuistry, — -cleansing the outside of cup, and dish, which reeked 
within with abomination that they swallowed as their daily food, 
" straining out the gnat, and swallowing the camel ;" — their hypocrisy 
could find no fitter image than the whited sepulchres, which they were 
so fond of garnishing without, while the mass of corruption was still 
festering within. Ay ! and the fact that their .chiefest care was be- 
stowed on the sepulchres of those prophets whom their fathers slew, 
suggested the climax of the denunciation. In their affected care to 
wash their hands of their fathers' deeds, they confessed themselves the 
children of those who slew the prophets, and were about to surpass 
their worst crimes by an act which should bring on them the guilt of 
all the blood shed under the Old Covenant. At last the utterance of 
wrath dies away in tones of the greatest pity, as he repeats his lamen- 
tation over Jerusalem, and her doom of desolation till his coming. 

Our Saviour's praise of the poor widow, who cast two mites — all 
she had — into the treasury, as having given more than all the sums 
the rich cast in from their abundance, is the last event of this day in 
the Temple, according to the first three Evangelists. St. John, who 
passes over the other incidents of this and the preceding day, relates 



6T2 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the coming of certain Greeks, who were introduced by Philip and 
Andrew to Jesus, and the declaration of our Lord that the hour was 
now come for the Son of Man to be glorified, and for the Father's 
name to be glorified by his death, followed by the approving voice 
of God from heaven. A brief conversation ensued, after which Jesus 
departed finally from the Temple, uttering his last words of promise 
to believers and of warning to those who rejected him ; words ad- 
dressed especially to many of the chief rulers, who believed in secret, 
but feared to confess him, " for they loved the praise of men more 
than the praise of God." 

But the greatest words of this eventful day were uttered by our 
Lord to his disciples after he had left Jerusalem. As unconscious of 
what was passing in his mind as they seem to have been inattentive 
to his prophecy of its ruin, they had called his attention, as he 
departed from the Temple, to the magnificence of its buildings ; and 
he had replied that the time was coming when not one stone would 
be left upon another. The eastern valley was no sooner crossed, than 
they began to ask him when these things would happen, and what 
would be the signs of his coming and of the end of the world. The 
threefold form of this inquiry is an important guide to the moment- 
ous discourse which Jesus uttered as he sat upon the slope of Olivet, 
in full view of the Temple. Here he is seen^as the great Prophet 
of the new dispensation, brieflv recounting the waruings long before 
uttered by Daniel, and yet to be more fully revealed through St. 
John. 

The first part of the discourse describes'the taking of Jerusalem by 
Titus, the destruction of the Temple, and, 'perhaps, the fearful 
calamities which attended the final dispersion of the Jews by Hadrian. 
Equally clear is the reference of the last 'part, though the point of 
transition is very difficult to fix, to the scenes preceding and attend- 
ing the end of the world and the final judgment; and to these a 
practical application is given by the parables of the faithful and 
unfaithful Servant, and of the wise and foolish Virgins ; while the 
whole concludes with a plain description of the judgment day. 

Meanwhile the rulers and chief priests, with the Scribes and elders 
of the people, met again at the house of Caiaphas, to consult how 
they could secure the prey which seemed to have escaped them. The 
scheme of arresting him in the Temple, or of stirring up either the 
Roman government or the popular fury, had been foiled by the 
enthusiasm of the people and of his own prudence and triumph in 
every argument ; and now they still feared that any attempt to appre- 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 613 

hend him on the feast-day would provoke an insurrection. The 
only course left was to seize him by treachery in his retirement ; and 
for this an opportunity was unexpectedly offered this very night. 
Judas Iscariot, whom Jesus had foreknown as the traitor from the 
first, came to the chief priests, and agreed to place his Master in their 
hands for the paltry bribe of thirty pieces of silver, the very sum 
fixed in the law as compensation for the life of a slave. Judas stands 
alone in sacred history as a man devoted by name, by the voice of 
the Lord himself, to perdition. How then did he obtain this awful 
pre-eminence? Simply by love of the world. He is the most 
marked type of those false disciples who joined Christ in the expecta- 
tion of an earthly kingdom ; and when our Lord's repeated announce- 
ments of his sufferings and death showed this to be a vain hope, he 
prepared to sell himself and his Master to the rulers. He seems to 
have had that practical talent for business which gains confidence, 
and was made the treasurer of the little band ; and this position 
became a snare to him. In that character he raised his hypocritical 
objection to the wastefulness of Mary's act of self-devotion, con- 
templating the securing the common purse for himself in the 
approaching end : — " This he said, not that he cared for the poor, 
but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put 
therein." The reply of Jesus, implying his knowledge that Judas 
cared as little for the poor as for him, seems to have set the seal to 
the traitor's purpose ; for Matthew and Mark place his communica- 
tion to the chief priests immediately after the feast in Bethany. 
Whether that feast be rightly placed after the Sabbath (on Saturday 
evening), or on the Tuesday evening, it seems clear from the three 
Evangelists that the latter was the date of Judas's bargain, two days 
before the Passover. 

Wednesday, the 13th of Nisan [April 4th). — Having, on the pre- 
vious evening, told "his disciples the time of his betrayal, though 
without naming the traitor, our Lord remained at Bethany till the 
afternoon of Thursday, and a solemn silence rests over this period of 
his life. At all events, the lesson is most impressive that, in the very 
last week of his ministry, after three days of incessant activity, our 
Lord secured this unbroken interval of holy contemplation, as the 
fittest preparation for his Passion. The idea, that he may have spent 
the day in converse with his disciples, seems to be excluded by the 
silence of St. John, who is so full in his relation of the next day's 
scenes. 

Thursday, the 14th of Nisan (April 5th). — " Then came the day 
43 



674 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




MOUNT OF OLIVES. 



of unleavened bread, .when the Passover must be killed." The exact 
time appointed in the law for killing the Paschal Lamb was on the 
14th of Nisan " between the evenings," or about sunset. As to the 
exact time, the Rabbis are divided : some interpreting the phrase of 
the interval between sunset and the end of twilight ; others of the 
interval between the marked decline of the sun toward the horizon 
and the actual sunset. For many reasons the latter appears to be 
the correct view; and it seems most probable that the lamb was 
killed soon after the evening sacrifice (the 9th hour), which, allowing 
for the time of roasting it, would bring the Paschal Supper to the 
usual hour of the evening meal, and so within the 14th day. The 
Feast of the Passover itself, in other words the Feast or Days of 
unleavened bread, did not properly begin till after sunset and the 
Paschal meal, so that the 15th of Nisan was the first day of the Feast. 
But, as all leaven was scrupulously removed about noon on the 
14th, in preparation for the feast, it was not unnatural to call this 
" the day" or as Matthew and Mark have it, "the first day of unleav- 
ened bread." So Josephus, in one place, makes the 14th of Nisan 
the first day of the feast, which he elsewhere fixes to the 15th; and 
I he assigns eight days as its duration. These considerations afford 
great help in deciding the important question — AVas the supper which 
our Lord ate with his disciples on the Thursday evening the true 
Paschal Supper, or did the latter fall on the following evening, the 
same as that of his crucifixion? The truth of the former view could 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 6?5 

never have been questioned, had we possessed the first three Gospels 
only. They expressly call the Supper of the Thursday evening the 
Passover ; and even if St. John does not so call it, no inference can 
be drawn from his silence, any more than from his not mentioning 
the institution of the Lord's Supper, considering the supplementary 
nature of his Gospel. 

There are, however, passages in St. John's narrative of our Saviour's 
Passion, which seem to suggest the inference that the Passover was 
yet to be eaten on the Friday evening ; but all these passages admit 
of another explanation.* The beautiful idea of making the time 

* A general account of the Passover is given in the Old Testament History, 
App pp. 215 foil. It is necessary to repeat here some particulars, in order to 
show its connection with the last Supper of our Lord. 

The manner in which the Paschal feast was kept by the Jews at the time of 
our Lord differed in many details from that originally prescribed by the rules of 
Ex. xii. The multitudes that came up to Jerusalem met, as they could find ac- 
commodation, family by family, or in groups of friends, with one of their number 
as the celebrant, or " proclaimer" of the feast. The ceremonies of the feast took 
place in the following order. (1) The members of the company that were joined 
for this purpose met in the evening and reclined on couches, this position being 
now as much a matter of rule as standing had been originally (comp. Matt. xxvi. 20, 
dvextnfo ; Luke xxii. 14 ; and John xiii. 23, 25). The head of the household, or 
celebrant, began by a form of blessing "for the day and for the wine," pro- 
nounced over a cup, of which he and the others then drank. The wine was, ac- 
cording to Rabbinic traditions, to be mixed with water ; not for any mysterious 
reason, but because that was regarded as the best way of using the best wine 
(comp. 2 Mace. xv. 39). (2) All who were present then washed their hands ; this 
also having a special benediction. (3) The table was then set out with the Pas- 
chal lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and the dish known as Charoseth, a 
sauce made of dates, figs, raisins and vinegar, and designed to commemorate the 
mortar of their bondage in Egypt. (4) The celebrant first, and then the others, 
dipped a portion of the bitter herbs into the Charoseth and ate them. (5) The 
dishes were then removed, and a cup of wine again brought. Then followed an 
interval which was allowed theoretically for the questions that might be asked by 
children or proselytes, who were astonished at such a strange beginning of a 
feast, and the cup was passed round and drunk at the close of it. (6) The 
dishes being brought on again, the celebrant repeated the commemorative words 
which opened what was strictly the Paschal supper, and pronounced a solemn 
thanksgiving, followed by Ps. cxiii. and cxiv. (7) Then came a second washing 
of the hands, with a short form of blessing as before, and the celebrant broke 
one of the two loaves or cakes of unleavened bread, and gave thanks over it. All 
then took portions of the bread and dipped them, together with the bitter herbs, 
into the Charoseth, and so ate them. (8) After this they ate the flesh of the Pas- 
chal lamb, with bread, etc., as they liked ; and after another blessing, a third 
cup, known especially as the "cup of blessing," was handed round. (9) This 
was succeeded by a fourth cup, and the recital of Ps. cxv.-cxviii., followed by a 
prayer, and this was accordingly known as the cup of the Hallel, or of the Song. 



676 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

when " Christ our Passover was slain for us " coincide with the sacri- 
fice of the Paschal Lamb, has influenced many a devout mind ; but 
every such temptation to tamper with historic truth, besides being 
inadmissible by the laws of evidence, generally involves the retribu- 
tion of losing some more valuable point. The true view seems to be 
that our Lord observed this, the greatest sacrifice of the Old Covenant, 
before he offered the one great sacrifice of the New ; and by so doing 

(10) There might be, hi conclusion, a fifth cup, provided that the "great Hallel" 
(possibly Ps. cxx.-cxxxvii.) was sung over it. 

Comparing the ritual thus gathered from Rabbinic writers with the New Testa- 
ment, and assuming that it represents substantially the common practice of our 
Lord's time, and that the meal of which he and his disciples partook was the Pass- 
over, we are able to point, though not with absolute certainty, to the points of 
departure which the old practice presented for the institution of the new. To (1) 
or (3) or even to (8), we may refer the first words and the first distribution of the cup 
(Luke xxii. 17, 18) ; to (4) or (7), the dipping of the sop (4>u>iuoi>) of John xiii 26; to 
(7), or to an interval during or after (8) the distribution of the bread (Matt. xxvi. 
26 ; Mark xiv. 22 ; Luke xxii. 19 ; 1 Cor. xi. 23, 24) ; to (9) or (10) (" after sup- 
per," Luke xxii. 20) the thanksgiving, and distribution of the cup, and the 
hymn with which the whole was ended. It will be noticed that, according to 
this order of succession, the question whether Judas partook of what, in the lan- 
guage of a later age, would be called the consecrated elements, is most probably 
to be answered in the negative. 

In the preceding account we have assumed that the meal, at which our Lord 
instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist, was the Paschal supper. But this has 
been much disputed. If we had nothing to guide us but the three first Gospels, 
no doubt of the kind could well be raised, though the narratives may not be free 
from difficulties in themselves. We find them speaking, in accordance with 
Jewish usage, of the day of the supper as that on which " the Passover must be 
killed." and as "the first day of unleavened bread" (Matt. xxvi. 17 ; Mark xiv. 
12 ; Luke xxii. 7). Each relates that the use of the guest-chamber was secured 
in the manner usual with those who came from a distance to keep the festival. 
Each states that "they made ready the Passover," and that, when the evening 
was come, our Lord, taking the place of the head of the family, sat down with 
the Twelve. He himself distinctly calls the meal "this Passover" (Luke xxii. 
15, 16). After a thanksgiving, he passes round the first cup of wine (Luke xxii. 
17), and, when the supper is ended, the usual " cup of blessing" (comp. Luke 
xxii. 20 ; 1 Cor. x. 16, xi. 25). A hymn is then sung (Matt. xxvi. 30 ; Mark xiv. 
26), which it is reasonable to suppose was the last part of the Hallel. 

But on the other hand, if we had no information but that which is to be gath- 
ered from St. John's Gospel, we should naturally infer that the evening of the 
supper was that of the 13th of Nisan, the day preceding that of the Paschal meal. 
It appears to be spoken of as occurring before the Feast of the Passover (xiii. 1, 
2). Some of the disciples suppose that Christ told Judas, while they were at 
supper, to buy what they " had need of against the feast " (xiii. 29). In the night 
which follows the supper, the Jews will not enter the Prsetorium lest they should 
be defiled and so not able to " eat the Passover" (xviii. 28). When onr Lord is 
before Pilate, about to be led out to crucifixion, we are told that it was " the 






THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 677 

he exactly fulfilled the type. For the Passover was the sign of God's 
merciful forbearance to his people: their actual deliverance from 
Egypt, the type of salvation by Christ, took place on the following 
day. The case has a beautiful analogy to that of the Sabbath. Our 
Lord rested in the grave on the Jewish Sabbath, before he instituted, 
by his resurrection, the New Sabbath of holy joy and active benevo- 
lence — the Lord's Day. In both cases the " oldness of the letter " 

preparation of the Passover" (xix. 14). After the crucifixion, the Jews are 
solicitous, " because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain 
upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was a high day " 
(xix. 31). 

"We have to show that the passages in St. John may be fairly interpreted in 
such a manner as not to interfere with our own conclusion. 

1. John xiii. 1, 2. rtpo trg ioptijs. The words are of doubtful extent ; and 
we may regard the first verse as incomplete in itself, understanding its purport 
to be that "Before the Passover, in the prospect of his departure, the Saviour'' s 
love was actively called forth toward his followers, and he gave proof of his love 
to the last." 

2. John xiii. 29. It is urged that the things of which they had " need against 
the feast " might have been the provisions for the Chagigah, perhaps with what 
else was required for the seven days of unleavened bread. The usual day for 
sacrificing the Chagigah was the 15th, which was then commencing. 

3. John xviii. 28. The Jews refused to enter the Prsetorium, lest they should 
be defiled and so disqualified from eating the Passover. The words may either 
be taken in a general sense as meaning " that they might go on keeping the Pass- 
over," or that to 7tdo%a may be understood specifically to denote the Chagigah. 

4. John xix. 14. " The preparation of the Passover " at first sight, would seem 
as if it must be the preparation for the Passover on the 14th. But while there 
was a regular " preparation " for the Sabbath, there is no mention of any "pre- 
paration " for the festivals. It seems to be essentially connected with the Sab- 
bath itself (John xix. 31). The phrase in John xix. 14 may thus be understood 
as the preparation of the Sabbath which fell in the Passover week. Thus the day 
of the preparation mentioned in the Gospels might have fallen on the day of 
holy convocation, the 15th of Kisan. 

5. John xix. 31. "That Sabbath day was a high day." Any Sabbath occur- 
ring in the Passover week might have been considered "a high day," as deriving 
an accession of dignity from the festival. But the special dignity of this day 
may have resulted from its being that on which the Oiner was offered, and from 
which were reckoned the fifty days to Pentecost. 

6. The difficulty of supposing that our Lord's apprehension, trial, and cruci- 
fixion took place on the day of holy convocation has been strongly urged. But 
we have better proof than either the Mishna or the Gemara can afford, that the 
Jews did not hesitate, in the time of the Roman domination, to carry arms and to 
apprehend a prisoner on a solemn feast-day. We find them at the Feast of Tab- 
ernacles, on the "great day of the feast," sending out officers to take our Lord, 
and rebuking them for not bringing him (John vii. 32-45). St. Peter also was 
seized during the Passover (Acts xii. 3, 4). And, again, the reason alleged by 
the rulers for not apprehending Jesus was, not the sanctity of the festival, but 



678 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

was duly fulfilled, before it was succeeded by " the newness of the 
spirit." Our Lord first united with the Jews, his brethren after the 
flesh, in observing the form of the old sacrifice ; and then having 
done with old things, he took the first step' in making all things new, 
by offering himself as the true sacrifice, "the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world." These preliminary difficulties being re- 
moved, so as we trust to throw a clearer light on the spirit of this, 
the most momentous event in the sacred history, we return to the 
narrative. 

As the day advanced, the disciples, well aware of the danger of a 
return to the city, asked the Master where they should prepare the 
Passover. He sent Peter and John into the city to a certain man, 
whom they were to recognize by a sign, and who, at the simple inti- 
mation of the Lord's will, showed them a large upper room, furnished 
and in proper order, where they prepared the feast. Entering the 
city privately, while the people were similarly engaged in their seve- 
ral households, Jesus sat down with the twelve Apostles to eat the 
Passover before sunset. 

The Evening and Night of Thursday, April 5th: the 14:th-15th 
Nisan. — Following the usual order of the feast, after first assuring 
the disciples o£ the ardent desire he had felt to eat with them this his 
last Passover on earth, and promising its fulfilment in God's King- 
dom, he took the first of the four cups of wine mixed with water, 
which were drunk at the feast, and having given thanks, he bade 
them divide it among themselves, for that he would not drink wine 
till the Kingdom of God should come. For this refusal of the cup, 
which he repeated later in the feast, there seems to have been both a 
physical and a ceremonial reason. In the same spirit in which he re- 
fused the opiate, which was commonly offered before the crucifixion, 
he would not incur either the danger or the suspicion of his mind be- 
ing clouded with wine ; and he abstained also as the officiating priest, 
about to lay down his own life in sacrifice. 

Even as the cup was passing round, the disciples again raised the 
old question, which of them should be the greatest in that kingdom 
of which he had spoken. He decided the controversy by marking 
the place of the faithful servant as that of the highest honor, according 

the fear of an uproar among the multitude which was assembled (Matt. xxvi. 5). 
In fine, due weight should be given to the antecedent probability that the meal 
was no other than the regular Passover, and the reasonableness of the contrary- 
view cannot be maintained without some artificial theory, having no foundation 
either in Scripture or ancient testimony. 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 679 

to his own example ; and promised an ample recompense for their 
share in his humiliation. Then, rising from the table, before begin- 
ning to eat the supper, he at once enforced the lesson, and gave them 
a proof of his love enduring to the end, by girding himself with a 
towel and washing their feet, the most humble of all menial services. 
Viewing it in this light, Peter, with his wonted ardor, refused at first ; 
but, when Jesus told him that this washing was a sign of union to 
him, he exclaimed, " Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and 
my head." Our Lord's reply taught the distinction between the 
washing which renews the nature and that which needs daily repeti- 
tion to cleanse from daily pollution, and he added, " Ye are clean, but 
not all;" for Judas had been a partaker of the rite. 

Resuming his garments, Jesus discoursed further of the example he 
had now given, and once more hinted at the traitor. For now this 
bitter sorrow had taken full possession of his mind ; and their sitting 
down again to the feast was followed by the affecting scene of his 
plainly declaring that the traitor was one of them. In their sorrow 
and confusion they ask, " Lord, is it I ? Is it I ?" Judas asks the 
same question, lest he should seem guilty, but he alone hears the an- 
swer, " Thou hast said it." Peter now urges John, who reclined next 
Jesus at Supper, with his head upon his bosom, to beg the Master to 
tell them who should be the traitor ; and to his request Jesus replies, 
" He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it." It 
seems that John had not time to communicate the answer to the other 
disciples; for when the sign was followed by the command, given 
with all the dignity of self-sacrifice, " What thou doest, do quickly," 
they supposed it only to be some commission given to Judas as the 
purse-bearer, and they were still, to say the least, in doubt about the 
traitor. So he went forth to concert his measures with the rulers, 
under cover of the night, which had now set in. 

Then Christ announced to those who were left, that the hour was 
come for the Son of Man to be glorified, and for God to be glorified 
in him ; that he was going before them on a path by which they 
should soon follow him, but that they were not yet ready ; and mean- 
while he gave them the new commandment, that they should love one 
another. The impatient zeal of Peter rebelled at the thought of not 
following his Master now ; and his self-deceiving readiness to lay 
down his life for Christ's sake was rebuked by the prediction, that he 
would deny him thrice on that very night before the crowing of the 
cock ; while the other disciples, who might be beginning to think 
themselves above the weakness of Peter as w r ell as the treachery of 



680 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Judas, were warned that they too would abandon him that night and 
be scattered abroad ; but he appointed to meet them in Galilee after 
his resurrection. 

Either just before or just after this scene, as the supper was draw- 
ing to an end, Christ took a loaf of the unleavened bread, and having 
given thanks, he broke it and gave it them to eat, as the emblem of 
his body, broken for men. Then, the supper being ended, he took a 
cup, the third of those usually partaken of, and divided it in like 
manner among them, as the pledge of the Xew Covenant in his blood, 
shed for the remission of sins. Thus he instituted the Lord's Sup- 
per, to be observed to all future time, in remembrance of him. 

Between the end of the meal and the hymns of praise which fol- 
lowed it, there was an interval of most solemn and delightful converse, 
in which the disciples, bowed down with sorrow at what they had 
heard, were assured that he would not leave them comfortless, though 
hated and persecuted by the world, but he would come again to take 
them to the mansions he now went to prepare for them ; and that 
meanwhile they would be divinely comforted, enlightened, and in- 
spired for their work by the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit of truth. 
Those exquisite chapters of St. John which contain this discourse 
conclude with that most solemn and affecting of all the utterances of 
human language, our Lord's intercessory prayer in presence of his 
disciples. The momentous scenes transacted in that upper chamber 
ended with the singing of a hymn, probably the " Great Hallel " 
(Psalm cxv.— cxviii.), which concluded the ceremony, and then they 
went out together to the first scene of suffering on the Mount of 
Olives. 

Going down into the ravine which divides Jerusalem from the 
Mount, they crossed the brook Kedron, and entered the Garden of 
Gothsemane (the Oil Press). A part of the garden still exists between 
the brook and the foot of the Mount, marked by a few olive-trees, 
which are old enough to have grown there since our Saviour's time. 
Here Jesus took apart the same three disciples, Peter, James, and 
John, who had seen his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, to be 
near him during that last agony of temptation, which darkened his 
soul and convulsed his frame. Leaving them with the charge to 
watch, for he knew that the traitor was approaching, he retired about 
a stone's-throw farther, to pray, while his spirit was overwhelmed 
with terror as lie contemplated the sins of mankind that were now 
laid upon him. His human nature shrank from the burden, which 
his will to save mankind still resolved to bear. In agonizing prayer 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 681 




GETHSEMANE. 



to his Father, he contemplates for a moment some possible alterna- 
tive : — "Abba ! Father ! all things are possible unto thee ! " — in the 
resources of divine omnipotence there might be some other method of 
saving man — " If it be possible, if thou be willing, take away this 
cup from me " — in which the torture of the scourge and the cross was 
the least bitter ingredient; but he leaves all to his Father's will ; 
" nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done !" In no scene of our 
Lord's life do we behold more clearly the union of his perfect hu- 
manity with his divinity. If, at the first view, the former element 
seems the more conspicuous, we must remember that this was the 
very crisis of his humiliation, in which, laying aside his divine attri- 
butes, " he humbled himself and became obedient to death," bowing 
down before the Father, as the representative of sinful man. But the 
very power to do this, the close communion with his Father concern- 
ing his will and counsels, and the perfect triumph of resignation over 
all human weakness, are proofs of his true deity. Encouraged by his 
example, and strengthened by his Holy Spirit, many a follower of 
Christ has drunk the cup of suffering and self-denial because it was 
God's will ; but for them that cup has never been mixed with the bit- 
terness of God's wrath. In this fearful conflict Jesus was not left 
alone. As in his first great temptation, an angel from heaven 
strengthened him. But his last earthly comfort failed ; for, when he 
came to his disciples, he found them sleeping ! The well-deserved 



682 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

rebuke, directed especially to Peter, who had boasted of his power to 
follow his Master even to death — " What, could ye not watch with 
me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation!" 
— is softened by the compassionate excuse, " The spirit indeed is 
willing, but the flesh is weak ! " A second and third time he departs to 
reiterate the same prayerj and returns to find them sunk in sleep so 
profound that they knew not what to answer him. But the third time 
he rouses them by announcing the danger against which they should 
have watched, and says, with an irony which lets them know that the 
opportunity was now past for rendering the last service he had asked 
of them : — " Sleep on now, and take your rest : it is enough, the hour 
is come ; behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sin- 
ners ! " And now that they are fully awake, he adds, " Rise up, let 
us go ; lo, he that betray eth me is at hand." 

At the same moment, torches were seen among the trees, and a 
multitude appeared, consisting of officers of the Temple, and others, 
hastily armed with swords and staves, sent by the chief priests under 
the guidance of the traitor Judas ; for he well knew the garden, where 
he had spent many an hour with Jesus. The Lord gave himself into 
their hands in such a manner as to prove how entirely the surrender 
was his own act. Twice they recoiled from his presence and fell to 
the ground, before Judas took courage to give the signal to seize him, 
by the traitor's kiss. At the sight of the officers binding his Master, 
Peter drew his sword, one of the only two that the disciples had, and 
struck off the right ear of one of the high priest's servants. Christ 
rebuked his untimely zeal, in obtruding such puny help upon him 
who could have commanded the heavenly hosts, and provoking vio- 
lence from the captors ; at the same time healing the servant's ear. 
Then, turning to the officers, he remonstrated against their show of 
force as if he were a thief, when they might have taken him any day 
as he was teaching in the Temple. To both parties he explained 
that this hour of triumph was granted to them and to the powers of 
darkness, in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. 

The disciples were afraid to share or even watch his fate, as he had 
foretold. " They all forsook him, and fled." The concern of Peter 
to make good his boast, and the love of John, induced them alone of 
all the rest to follow at a safe distance. There was indeed one young 
man, an attendant, it seems, on Jesus or one of the Apostles, who ven- 
tured to follow Christ ; but, when he was seized by his only garment, 
he fled, leaving it in the captor's hand. The particular mention of 
this incident by M»?k only, has given rise to the conjecture that it 
refers to himself. 






THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 683 

The divine prisoner was lead first to the house of Annas, the father- 
in-law of the high-priest, Caiaphas ; perhaps to avoid committing the 
rulers publicly, till it was decided whether they would risk a public 
trial. But there seems now to have been no wish to draw back ; and 
Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas, who had already openly advised 
his death. 

Peter and John still followed at a distance ; but John, having some 
acquaintance with the high-priest, not only ventured himself into the 
palace, but spoke to the female servant at the door, who let in Peter. 
To understand what ensued, the structure of an oriental house should 
be remembered. The gate gives entrance to an open court-yard, and 
it was in the middle of this court that the servants and officers made 
a fire to keep off the chilliness of a spring night. Jesus was led into 
one of the chambers opening into the court, whence he could see what 
passed round the fire. Where John was we are not told ; but it seems 
that, being knOwn to the servants, he was left unmolested, and so be- 
came an eye-witness of what followed to the very end ; and hence the 
vast importance which is assigned to his testimony. 

Peter, with characteristic rashness, ventured into the circle round 
the fire, which was soon joined by the damsel who had given him 
admittance. She looked at Peter, and recognized him as the disciple 
of Jesus ; but he rudely denied it. Alarmed and conscience-stricken, 
he retired to the porch, just in time to hear the first warning note of 
cock-crow. Soon after, another maid pointed him out to the by- 
standers, saying, " He was also with Jesus of Nazareth f and Peter's 
fears only led him to a more resolute denial. About an hour later, 
the evidence against him was completed by a kinsman of Malchus, the 
servant whose ear he had cut off. This man declared that he had 
seen him in the garden. Peter's continued denials only furnished 
fresh proofs to the by-standers by means of his Galilean dialect ; and, 
thus convicted, he added oaths and curses to the protestation, " I know 
not the man." At that moment the cock crew again ; Jesus turned 
and looked on Peter from the room where he was waiting in bonds ; 
and Peter went out and wept bitterly. 

Such was the end of Peter's readiness to lay down his life for his 
Master's sake. More than thirty years later, he was permitted to 
follow, as Christ had promised him, in the path of martyrdom ; but 
now Jesus had to tread that path alone, as his sacrifice alone could 
atone for sin. His demeanor throughout his trials, first before the 
Sanhedrim, and then before Pilate, is to be viewed in a threefold 
aspect — as a man falsely accused, as a religious teacher called to de- 



684 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

fend the truth of his doctrine, and as the Son of God, arraigned in his 
humiliation before those who would in the last day stand at his judg- 
ment seat. He knew how the trial would end, nay, how it must end, 
in order that the very purpose of his mission might not fail ; but, 
while he scorns, in dignified silence, to urge the illegality of the pro- 
cedure and the weakness of the evidence, before judges who had pre- 
judged the case, neither does he utter a word of unseemly bravado or 
provocation. "In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away, 
yet he opened not his mouth." 

The first interrogation seems to have been made by the high-priest 
just after Peter's first denial, preparatory to the meeting of the San- 
hedrim at dawn. " The high-priest asked Jesus of his disciples, and 
of his doctrine." The former question may have been designed to 
ascertain, before summoning the Sanhedrim, how far the new leaven 
had spread among its members ; but Jesus betrayed no man. To the 
other question he only replied by appealing to the evidence of those 
who had been his hearers, and upon this an officer struck him for con- 
tempt of the high-priest. Caiaphas seems then to have retired to 
summon the Sanhedrim ; and Peter's second and third denials occurred 
in the mean time. 

Good Friday, still the 15th of Nisan {April 6th). — At 
dawn of day the council met, and Jesus was arraigned before 
them. Their first object was to condemn him as a false prophet and 
blasphemer, crimes punishable by the Mosaic law with death. We 
shall presently see how they proposed to execute the sentence. The 
law required the testimony of two witnesses ; and several witnesses 
were suborned, while others seem to have come forward willingly to 
court the powers that were in the ascendant; but their testimony was 
too evidently false to be admitted. When at last two were found to 
swear to the same point, and to pervert the words he had used about 
the destruction and resurrection of the temple of his body, into a 
threat that he would destroy the Temple, they were still at variance 
with one another. 

To all this evidence Jesus made no reply, as indeed none was neces- 
sary ; till the high-priest reproached him for his silence, and adjured 
him by the living God to say whether he was the Christ, the Son of 
God. He might have been the Messiah, and yet not have claimed 
the divinity implied in the latter title. But he plainly said I AM, 
and warned them of the time when they should see him sitting in his 
power at the right hand of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven. 
This was enough, Rending his clothes— the wonted sign of distress 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 685 

and horror — the high-priest appealed to the council, who at once con- 
demned Jesus for blasphemy, while the officers covered his face, spat 
on him, and buffeted him with blows, mocking his prophetic powers 
by asking him to tell who struck him, and adding many other blas- 
phemies. 

The next step, according to the law of Moses, would have been to 
have led him without the city and stoned him to death. But the sub- 
jection of the Jews to Rome had deprived even their highest court of 
the power of life and death ; and, instead of venturing to offend the 
procurator, they needed all his support, in case of a rising of the people. 
So they took a course which secured the fulfilment of Christ's own 
sayings respecting the manner of his death. It became the act of 
Pilate, with the approval of Herod ; thus uniting with the ecclesiasti- 
cal rulers of the Jews their own civil authority and the supreme power 
of Rome — a concurrence of the representatives of all the world — and 
securing the infliction of that form of death, the most ignominious as 
well as painful, which could best mark God's wrath against sin, and 
which, as especially the punishment of a slave, showed the Saviour 
descending to the lowest depths of humiliation, as a proof that he 
would save the most degraded. 

They led him to the Prcetorium, where the Roman procurator, 
Pontius Pilate, had just taken his seat early in the morning ; but, 
as they could not enter a court inaugurated by heathen sacrifices 
without incurring a pollution that would have prevented their keep- 
ing the feast, Pilate came out to ask them the charge on which they 
delivered up the prisoner. They only replied that he was a male- 
factor ; and Pilate gave them leave to deal with him according to 
their law. But they declined the responsibility, and charged him 
with the political offence of forbidding the people to pay tribute to 
Caesar (the very trap into which they had vainly tried to draw him), 
and making himself a king, a claim which they alone had desired 
him to make in a form hostile to the emperor. Armed with this 
definite charge, and of course knowing nothing of a spiritual kingdom, 
Pilate went back to the Prsetorium and began his examination by 
asking, "Art thou King of the Jews?" Jesus replied that his 
kingdom was not of this world, as the peaceful conduct of his disci- 
ples proved ; and, when further pressed with the question, "Art thou 
a king then ? ■ ■ — he explained his kingdom to consist in bearing wit- 
ness to the truth, and claimed the allegiance of every one who was 
himself true. To this appeal, Pilate made the often quoted rejoinder, 
" What is truth ? " — a question, perhaps, expressing the contempt of 



686 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

a Roman for speculation on moral subjects, but not uttered in the 
"jesting" spirit ascribed to it by Bacon. It is true that he "stayed 
not for a reply/' and he left the Prsetorium, to tell the Jews that he 
found no fault in the accused. He seems to have brought Jesus out 
with the intention of dismissing him ; but the priests and elders 
began to upbraid him with new charges, declaring that he had stirred 
up all the people from Galilee to Jerusalem, to which he made no 
reply. 

Catching at the mention of Galilee as the chief scene of his seditious 
teaching, Pilate resolved to send him to Herod Antipas, who had 
come up to Jerusalem to the Passover — a practice by which he was 
accustomed to conciliate the Jews. Herod rejoiced at obtaining the 
interview which he had long sought in vain, and put many questions 
to Jesus, in the hope of his working some miracle. Provoked, how- 
ever, at receiving no answer, and seeing the vehemence of Christ's 
accusers, Herod with his soldiers made a mockery of his regal claims, 
and sent him back to Pilate arrayed in the imperial purple. The 
occasion was seized for a reconciliation between the king and the 
procurator, who had been long at variance, and the words of David 
were fulfilled, " The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers 
took counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed." 

Finding himself compelled to decide the case, Pilate tried an 
appeal to the generous feelings of the people. It was a customary 
act of grace, in honor of the Passover, for the Roman governor to 
release some prisoner, whom the people chose. Knowing that the 
charge against Jesus sprang from the envy of the priests, and that 
the people had shown such enthusiasm for Christ, he proposed to 
release him whom they had so lately hailed as their King. But the 
plan was defeated by a cunning manoeuvre of the priests. There Mas 
another prisoner, named Barabbas, a murderer and robber, and the 
leader of one of those insurrections against the Roman government, 
which were frequent during the later days of Judaea. The feelings 
of the people were easily inflamed on behalf of this patriot brigand ; 
and they probably saw by this time that Jesus was not about to fulfil 
their hopes of a miraculous restoration of David's kingdom. Pilate 
awaited their decision with an anxiety the more intense, because 
while sitting on the tribunal he received a warning message from his 
wife, who had just awakened from a harassing dream about the "just 
man." He repeated the question, " Which of the two shall I release 
to you?" and they replied, "Not this man, but Barabbas!" Again 
he tried to bring them to reason, and to revive their interest in 




O 
W 

H 

CO 



C37 



688 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Christ, by asking, " What will ye then that I shall do to him whom 
ye call the King of the Jews f " The answer was ready, " Crucify 
him." Still Pilate made a third appeal — " Why, what evil hath he 
done?" and, again declaring that he found no fault in him, he pro- 
posed the strange compromise, to scourge him and let him go ! But 
by this time the people, always ready for sedition, and continually 
prompted by the priests, were roused by the show of opposition to 
one of those tumults which were sure to bring disgrace on a Roman 
governor. The loud cries of " Crucify him ! " prevailed over reason 
and conscience ; and Pilate released Barabbas, and yielded up Jesus 
to their will. 

But first a ceremony was enacted between the governor and the 
Jews, vain on his part, but of awful significance on theirs ! Pilate 
washed his hands before the people, protesting, " I am innocent of 
the blood of this just person: see ye to it;" and they accepted the 
tremendous responsibility: — "His blood be on us and on our chil- 
dren." That responsibility they were afterward as eager to disclaim ; 
but the curse of his innocent blood still works upon their scattered 
race, only to be expiated when their faith " brings this man's blood 
upon them " as an atonement. 

Jesus was now handed over to the Roman soldiers, whose brutality 
was inflamed with contempt for the peasant king of the despised 
Jews. To the torture of the scourging which preceded crucifixion 
were added the mockery of the crown of thorns, the purple robe, and 
the reed for a sceptre, while the soldiers mingled their parody of the 
forms of homage with blows and spitting in his face. 

The scene seems to have suggested to Pilate one more effort to save 
Jesus, in which, if unsuccessful, he would at least indulge his levity 
by an insult to the Jews. As a proof that he believed him innocent, 
he brought him out and showed him invested with the insignia of 
royalty ! But the insult excited rage and not compassion, and the 
cry was again, " Crucify him ! " " Take ye him and crucify him ; 
for I find no fault in him," rejoined Pilate, knowing that they dared 
not take him at his word ; while they cried that he deserved death 
according to their law, because he made himself the Son of God. 

Pilate's reluctance had for some time shown a mixture of super- 
stitious fear, which these words raised to the highest pitch. Leading 
Jesus back into the hall, he asked him, "Whence art thou?" but he 
received no answer. When he urged the question by speaking of his 
power to crucify or to release him, Jesus told him that he could have 
no power at all over him unless it were given him from above, and 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 689 

with divine authority pronounced the guilt of his betrayers the 
greater. Pilate was now determined, if possible, to release him ; but 
the Jews knew how to work upon a fear more present to him than 
that of the last judgment: — " If thou let this man go, thou art not 
Caesar's friend." The dread of being denounced to Tiberius for 
acquitting an usurper was decisive to his weak and selfish spirit. 
Leaving the Prsetorium, and planting the Bema or judgment-seat in 
the open place called Gabbatha (the pavement), in full view of the 
Temple and the people, Pilate passed sentence on him whom he had 
so often declared innocent, and of whose right to be his judge he was 
not unaware. Still venting the reproaches of his conscience in insults 
on his instigators, he again said to the Jews, " Behold your King ! " 
"Away with him ! crucify him ! " was still the answer. And when 
he asked, "Shall I crucify your King?" — the chief priests, in their 
rage, abjured the independence which was the strongest passion of a 
Jew, " We have no king but Caesar." 

The providence of God took them at their word, when their last 
efforts for freedom ended in their dispersion over all the world. No 
less signal was the retribution which befell the other actors in this 
greatest crime of the world's history. The unjust judge, whose 
reluctance was the measure of his conscious guilt, soon incurred the 
very displeasure the fear of which urged him to the crime, and, like 
Judas, put an end to his own life. There was no delay in the fate 
of the arch-traitor himself. Remorse seized him as soon as he saw 
that Jesus was condemned, an end which he had probably expected 
to see averted by the people or the governor, so that he might have 
enjoyed the reward of his treason, without its involving his Master's 
death. He now carried back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief 
priests, and confessed his sin, hoping, perhaps, that good might yet 
be done by this assertion of Christ's innocence. Their only answer 
was to throw the responsibility upon him ; and, casting down the 
money on the pavement of the Temple, he went and hanged himself. 
His death was made more horrible to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
by the circumstance recorded by St. Luke in the Acts ; but most 
awful of all is the sentence which was more than once pronounced 
upon him by the Lord, and with which Peter dismisses his name 
from the Apostles' list, "from which Judas by transgression fell, that 
he might go to his own place" With a scrupulousness which is the 
most striking example of religious formalism glossing over moral 
deformity, the chief priests decided that the thirty silver pieces, as the 
price of blood, must not be put back into the treasury, so they pur- 
44 



690 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

chased with them the potter's field without the city, as a burial place 
for strangers, thereby fulfilling to the very letter a prophecy of 
Zechariah. It seems to be implied in the narrative that the field 
thus purchased was also the place where Judas committed suicide, 
and the double memorial of the scene and the price of blood was 
preserved by its name, Aceldama (the field of blood). 

That great sacrifice was meanwhile accomplished, which 
no uninspired pen would dare to relate, were it not neces- 
sary to gather up in one view, and in some points to explain, the 
several statements of the Evangelists. The points that require notice 
are, the manner and place and time of the execution, the incidents 
that marked it, and the sayings which our Saviour uttered from the 
cross. It was a Roman execution, conducted in the usual forms of 
crucifixion, but with some important variations. The scourging had 
already been inflicted, and Jesus was now clothed by the soldiers 
with his own garments, of which more presently, in place of the 
purple robe of mock royalty, and was led forth from the city to the 
place of public execution. This was necessarily without the city, but 
it was evidently near to one of the gates, and beside a public road. 
Such is the sum of our knowledge, and there is no mention of its 
being on a hill. Its Hebrew name, Golgotha (the place of a skull), 
is interpreted by all four Evangelists by the equivalent Greek word 
xpanot>, which is duly rendered in the Vulgate, in each case, calvaria; 
but, with that capricious variety which is one of its chief blots, our 
Version gives us only in St. Luke the word Calvary, which has so 
long been the key-note of the most sacred associations of thought and 
feeling. 

One ignominious feature of crucifixion, the criminal's carrying his 
own cross to the place of execution, was not omitted in the case of 
Jesus, as we learn from St. John ; but the other three Evangelists 
state that the soldiers laid the burden upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, 
who happened to be coming into Jerusalem from the country. The 
obvious reconciliation is that so often presented to the eye by great 
painters, that our Saviour, exhausted by his previous agony, sunk 
beneath the weight, which no one else would defile himself by lifting. 
The enforced service seems to have brought upon Simon the blessing 
pronounced by Christ on those who, in a spiritual sense, take up the 
cross and follow him ; for St. Mark speaks of Simon and his sons, 
Alexander and Rufus, as persons well known in the Church. The 
procession was followed by a multitude, among whom were many 
women lamenting him ; but he bade them weep not for him, but for 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 691 

the fearful troubles that were coming on the land. That no circum- 
stance of disgrace might be wanting to bring the substitute for sinners 
down to the lowest level of those for whom he died, two common and 
probably atrocious criminals were led with him to death, as the 
prophet had foretold. 

Arrived at the place of execution, the condemned were stripped 
and fastened to the cross, which was usually of the form familiar to 
us under the name of the Roman cross ; but not nearly so high as is 
commonly represented. The feet of the sufferer were only a foot or 
two above the ground — a fact of some weight, as showing that Jesus 
suffered in the midst of his persecutors, and not looking down from 
above their heads. The body was either nailed or bound by cords to 
the cross, or in both wa\s. Our Lord was nailed, both by the hands 
and feet, as the prophets had foretold ; a method more exquisitely 
painful at first, though tending to shorten the torture. When the 
cross was already standing, the sufferer was raised up and affixed to 
it ; but otherwise, as in our Saviour's case, he was fastened to it as it 
lay upon the ground, and the shock when it was dropped into the 
hole or socket must have been terrible. To deaden the sense of these 
tortures, a soporific was usually administered ; but our Lord refused 
the mixture of wine and myrrh thus offered him, probably for a, 
reason already noticed. He still observed the meek silence which 
Isaiah had foretold, till all the horrid details were accomplished, and 
he hung upon the cross between the two malefactors, on his right and 
on his left ; being thus emphatically " numbered with the trans- 
gressors." It was then that he uttered the first of the seven sayings, 
which have ever been revered as his dying words, a prayer for his 
murderers 1 — "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

St. Mark gives us the time of our Saviour's crucifixion, the third 
hour (or 9 o'clock A. m.), the very time when the morning sacrifice 
was offered. All the three first Evangelists agree in placing his 
death at the 9th hour, which was the time of the evening sacrifice; 
the whole space of six hours being divided at noon by the beginning 
of the miraculous darkness. The apparent discrepancy with the 
statement of St. John, that it was about the sixth hour when Pilate 
condemned him, is explained by supposing that St. John's reckoning 
is from midnight, and that the intervening time (6-9 A. m.) was 
occupied in preparations. 

The execution was carried out, and the cross watched, by a guard 
of four soldiers, with a centurion ; and the garments of the sufferers 
were their perquisite. Four parts being made, there remained the 



692 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

upper robe, woven throughout without a seam, the type of Christ's 
perfect righteousness, and the source of healing to many who had 
touched it. As it would have been spoiled by dividing it, the soldiers 
decided to cast lots for it, thus fulfilling another prophecy : " They 
parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast 
lots." 

The custom of writing up the culprit's crime on a scroll above his 
head gave Pilate another opportunity of mortifying the Jews, while 
bearing unconscious witness to the truth. To avoid all ambiguity, he 
wrote the title in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, a fact which forbids our 
explaining the various readings of the Evangelists by translation, and 
leaves this a decisive proof that their inspiration did not preclude 
varieties of expression, even in quoting important documents. They 
give it in the fpllowing forms : 

"This is Jesus, the King of the Jews" (Matthew). 

"The King of the Jews" (Mark). 

"This is the King of the Jews" (Luke). 

"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews" (oohu). 

That the last was the exact form may be safely inferred from St. 
John's presence at the cross, where the words were before his eyes for 
all that memorable six hours, and from his care to specify the lan- 
guages in which it was written. And who but a slave to the letter 
on the one hand, or a sceptic predetermined to wrest every difference 
into a contradiction on the other, would for a moment doubt that the 
other three Evangelists, intent only on recording the real point of the 
inscription, were content to give its general sense — " The King of 
the Jews ? " Pilate's shaft did not miss his mark. The chief priests 
wished him to amend the description thus : " He said, I am King of 
the Jews ;" but he silenced them with the answer, " What I have 
written I have written." 

For the first three hours (9-12 A. m), Jesus hung upon the cross, 
exposed to all the insults of the rulers, and of the rabble whose cries 
had changed with his change of fortune. Some stood to enjoy the 
sight ; while others, passing in and out of the neighboring city-gate, 
wagged their heads, and taunted him with the very prophecy which 
was being fulfilled — the destruction of the temple of his body, that it 
might be raised again in three days. A strong temptation was added 
to these taunts. He was challenged to prove his divine power and 
kingdom by coming down from the cross : nay, even the chief priests 
offered to believe him on that sign, though they disbelieved the still 
higher proof given by his resurrection. Of the very culprits who 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 693 

hung beside him, one joined in the railing, and dared to demand their 
deliverance and his as a proof that he was the Christ. But the other 
reproved his comrade's madness, confessing the justice of their sen- 
tence, and bearing witness to Christ's innocence, and then turned to 
him with the prayer, " Lord, remember me when thou comest into 
thy kingdom." Jesus opened his lips for the second time with these 
words, which at once assure the penitent sinner that " He is able to 
save even to the uttermost," and the dying believer that to be " absent 
from the body" is to be " present with the Lord" in immediate 
bliss : — " Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in 
paradise." Thus did Jesus, even on the cross, anticipate, in the case 
of these two types of sinners, the sentence he will pass on those who 
stand on the right and on the left hand of his judgment-seat. 

Having thus forgiven his persecutors, and blessed the penitent sin- 
ner, our Lord spoke for the third time, in tender care of those dear to 
him on earth. Three women, with the beloved disciple, had dared to 
stay by his cross. They were " the three Marys ;" his mother ; her 
sister, the wife of Clopas ; and Mary of Magdala. With filial love, 
even in that hour of agony, he bade his mother behold a son in the 
beloved disciple, and that disciple to look upon her as his mother ; 
and henceforward Mary found a home with John. 

It was now noon, but such a noon as had never been seen in Judsea. 
The position of the Paschal full moon precluded the possibility of a 
solar eclipse ; and yet a supernatural darkness rested upon all the 
land, from the 6th hour to the 9th hour, as if to veil the last agonies 
of the Redeemer from the eyes of men. But far deeper than that 
darkness was the gloom that weighed upon the Saviour's soul, as he 
bore the whole burden of the divine wrath for the sins of all men. 
To that awful mystery our only guide is in the words, with which at 
the ninth hour he broke the solemn silence, " My God ! my God ! 
why hast thou forsaken me?" words already used prophetically by 
David in the great Psalm which describes the Messiah's sufferings — 
words which never since have been, nor ever will be again, wrung 
from any human being, except through sinful despondency or final 
impenitent despair ; for he endured his father's desertion that we might 
never have to bear it. Their sense was lost upon the bystanders, who, 
remembering the connection of the promised Elijah with Christ, caught 
at the sound of the word "Eli" (My God) as a call for the prophet. 
At this moment the sufferer's mortal frame endured its last agony of 
intense thirst, and, to fulfil one more prophecy, he exclaimed, "I 
thirst." One of the by-standers filled a sponge from a vessel stand- 



694 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

ing near, with the mixture of acid wine and water which was the 
common drink of the Roman soldiers, and lifting it on a stalk of hys- 
sop, put it to his mouth, while the rest said, " Let us see if Elijah will 
come to help him." Though offered in derision, it was doubtless 
refreshing to his sinking frame. 

And now all that man could inflict had been endured ; all that the 
Son of God could do and bear for man had been done and suffered. 
The end of his agony and the completion of his redeeming work are 
both announced by the loud cry, " It is fixished f the soul which 
had animated his mortal body is yielded back to God with those 
words of perfect resignation, " Father, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit f and, bowing his head upon his breast, he expired. 

Separate as the diyine sufferer was from all other men in the nature 
and purpose of his sacrificial death, the spirit with which, as a man, 
he yielded up his life is none the less a model for his disciples. His 
prayer for the forgiveness of his murderers, and his resignation of his 
spirit to God, were repeated, almost in the same words, by the first 
Christian martyr, Stephen ; and it has ever been the great desire of 
his followers to die, as he died, in charity with man, in affection to 
their kindred, and in resignation to God's will. Like him, too, they 
put off the body of sin and death forever, and cease from their works 
as he did from his ; in the firm belief that, if we be dead with Christ, 
we shall also live with him. 

His death was followed by portents not to be overlooked by any of 
the multitudes assembled at Jerusalem, and forming irrefragable evi- 
dence for all future time. The priest, who entered the Holy Place at 
this very hour, with the blood of the evening sacrifice, saw the veil 
rent in twain from the top to the bottom. That veil was the special, 
as the Temple itself was a more general, symbol of Christ's body, the 
visible covering which enshrined the abode of deity; and the one was 
rent, and the other broken, to show that " a new and living way was 
consecrated for us to enter into the Holiest of all, bv the blood of 
Jesus, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." The rocks which 
surrounded Jerusalem were rent with a great earthquake, and the 
graves were opened, to show that his death was the beginning of new 
life ; and many of the saints, those perhaps who had lately died in the 
faith of his speedy coming, rose and were seen by many in the city 
after his resurrection. Even such wonders were not enough to break 
down the stubborn spirit of the Jews; they had to wait for the 
stronger influences of the Holy Spirit; and, at the most, they departed 
with deep feelings of wondering grief. But the Roman centurion saw 



THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. 695 

enough in the manner of Christ's death, and in his expiring words, to 
make him glorify God by the confession, " Truly this was a just man ! 
Truly this was the Son of God !" The most attached of his friends, 
including the devoted women who followed him from Galilee, only 
ventured to view the scene from a distance. 

The day was now drawing to a close, and at sunset the Sabbath 
would begin. " That Sabbath day was a high day ;" especially as 
being the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, when the first- 
fruits of the harvest were offered in the Temple, and whence the fifty 
days were* reckoned to the Day of Pentecost. For that Sabbath this 
day itself was the " preparation." This statement, twice made by St. 
John, has caused much debate; but it seems to refer simply to the 
custom of preparing for any sacred festival on the previous day. On 
this " 'preparation day " especially, they would put away all pollutions 
and signs of mourning that might mar the coming feast. So, though 
they had not scrupled to enact on it a deed which would have profaned 
any day, they could not endure its defilement by the consequences of 
their judicial murder. Pilate readily granted their request, that the 
sufferings of the crucified might be ended by breaking their legs (for 
to dispatch them with the sword was deemed too honorable), and that 
they might be buried. This was done to the two malefactors ; but as 
Christ was found to be dead already, his limbs were left unbroken. 
To make sure, however, of his death, one of the soldiers pierced his 
side with a spear ; and blood and water were seen to flow mingled 
from the wound. Thus was fulfilled both the prophetic ordinance of 
the true Paschal Lamb, "A bone of him shall not be broken," and 
that other prophecy, " They shall look on him whom they pierced." 

Most justly does St. John lay the utmost stress on the truth of his 
testimony, as an eye-witness, to this incident, not only for the spiri- 
tual sense which he afterward gave it, but as the very turning-point 
on which the credibility of the Gospel rests. It established beyond 
a doubt the reality of Christ's death, without full proof of which the 
evidence of his resurrection would always have been questionable. 
And the matter was put beyond all dispute by the care of Pilate to 
ascertain from the centurion the truth of a death so unusually speedy. 
The tortures of crucifixion were often prolonged three days, and even 
more ; but the exhaustion of our Saviour's toil-worn frame, by his 
night of agony, and by his inexpressible mental anguish on the cross, 
are causes adequate to explain his dying in six hours ; while the 
abundant flow of lymph and blood, due to the piercing of the pericar- 
dium, makes it probable that he died literally of a " broken heart." 



696 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Meanwhile Joseph of Armathaea, a rich man and a member of the 
Sanhedrim, who had been no party to their councils against Jesus, 
now boldly avowed his secret discipleship by coming to Pilate and 
begging the body of Jesus. Pilate consented, as soon as he had satis- 
fied himself of the real death. Joseph's example gave courage to 
Nicodemus, who brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes to anoint the 
corpse : even as the Jewish kings used to be buried in spices. The 
near approach of the Sabbath left no time for the final funeral cere- 
monies. They took down the body from the cross ; and wrapping it 
hastily in linen, with the spices, they laid it in a new rock-hewn sep- 
ulchre, which Joseph had made for himself, in a garden close at hand. 
To secure the sepulchre during the Sabbath, they rolled a great stone 
against its door, and departed. Thus was the prophecy fulfilled, that 
the Messiah should " make his grave with the rich." Mary Magda- 
lene, and Mary the sister of Christ's mother, who had sat opposite the 
sepulchre during the burial, and had seen how the body was laid in 
it, went home, postponing the preparation of their spices and oint- 
ments for the full performance of the funeral rites till after the 
Sabbath ; and then " they rested the Sabbath day according to the 
commandment." The mother of Jesus seems to have been led home 
from the cross, when the body was taken down, by John, her new- 
found son. 

The Sabbath day (Easter Eve) : Saturday, the 16th of Nisan 
(April 7th), from the preceding sunset. — The sacred narrative leaves 
the disciples in the overwhelming grief and desolation amid which 
they kept this Sabbath ; having, as we may infer from the events of 
the next day, re-assembled from their dispersion, and looking forward, 
though with only the faintest hope, to the third day, on which Jesus 
had foretold his resurrection. The chief priests and Pharisees also 
remembered the prediction with alarm, and on the pretence that his 
disciples might steal away the body, they obtained Pilate's permission 
to set a watch of soldiers over the tomb, saw that it was securely shut, 
and sealed the stone. 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 691 




CHAPTER XXXV. 

THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OP CHRIST, FROM EASTER DAY TO ASCEN- 
SION DAY, APRIL 8TH TO MAY 17TH, A. D. 30. 

UNI) AY, the 17 th of Nisan {April 8th), the First Lord's Lay. 
Easter Day. — As the resurrection of Christ is the great 
fact, so the day of its occurrence is the great day of Chris- 
tianity. From the time of the Apostles its weekly return 
has been called by the name of the Lord's Day ; and to 
this epoch of the new creation of all things, marked by the new 
life of Christ, all the permanent sanctity of the primeval Sabbath 
was transferred. 

Great difficulties have been found in making out the 
history of the day from the four Gospels ; but these diffi- 
culties will yield to a careful study, based on the principle that each 
Evangelist wrote with a special purpose, and from special sources of 
information. It does not belong to our work to attempt a critical 
discussion of their several statements ; but to give the result of such 
discussion in the most probable order of those appearances of Jesus 
to his disciples, which satisfied them that "the Lord was risen 
indeed." 

I. The Resurrection itself is related only by St. Matthew : — " Be- 
hold, there was a great earthquake : for the angel of the Lord 
descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the 
door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his 
raiment white as snow : and for fear of him the keepers did shake, 
and became as dead men." That this account was derived, in part at 
least, from one or more of the Roman soldiers, professing afterward 
that belief which such a scene ought to have compelled, is probable 
from the acquaintance which the same Evangelist shows with the 
fact that they were at first bribed to give out the absurd story, that 
Roman soldiers had slept on duty, and while asleep had somehow 
come to know that the body was stolen by the disciples. But yet it 
may be doubted whether this is not one of the cases, in which the 
sacred writers were taught, as Paul declares himself to have been 
taught this very fact, " not of man, but by the revelation of Jesus 
Christ." 



698 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The time of the resurrection is stated by St. Mark as " early on the 
first day of the week," which began from the sunset of the evening 
before. It had already taken place when the first visit was paid to 
the sepulchre, " while it was yet dark, as it began to dawn." The 
portion, however brief, of this day (according to Jewish reckoning) 
that Jesus remained in the tomb is reckoned as one day, like the 
brief interval between his burial and the Friday's sunset, and thus he 
remained three days in the earth. 

II. Visit of the Women to the Sepulchre. The Jewish custom of 
resuming the occupations of common life the moment the Sabbath's 
sun had set, had enabled the two Marys to purchase on that evening 
the spices needed to complete the embalmment which Nicodemus had 
hastily performed. At the approach of dawn they came to the 
sepulchre, with certain other women, among whom was Joanna, to 
perform this pious service, wondering, as they went along, how they 
could roll away the great stone from its mouth. They reached the 
sepulchre at sunrise and found the stone removed ; and entering they 
saw that the body of Jesus was gone. 

III. Mary Magdalene carries the news to Peter and John. The 
ardent love of Mary Magdalene prompted her at once to run and 
tell Peter and John of the trick that she supposed had been played 
by the enemies of Christ in removing his body beyond the reach of 
his disciples. 

IV. Vision of an Angel to the Women in the Sepulchre. Mean- 
while the other women had entered the recesses of the rock-hewn 
sepulchre, and there they saw an angel sitting on the right side, in 
the form of a young man in a long white robe, who told them that 
Christ had risen and would meet his disciples in Galilee, with other 
words of comfort and encouragement. Fear at the vision, and joy at 
the tidings, joined to hasten the flight of the women from the sepul- 
chre, that they might carry the news to the disciples. 

V. First appearance of Jesus — to the Women on their return from 
the Sepulchre. Their hasty course was stayed by the appearance and 
greeting of Jesus himself. They fell down to worship him, and re- 
ceived from his own lips the same message that the angel had given 
them. The Apostles and other disciples received the intelligence "as 
idle tales," not being yet ready to believe the truth. 

VI. Visit of Peter and John to the Sepulchre. Luke speaks of the 
Eleven (a common formula for the body of the Apostles at this 
period) as receiving these tidings from the women, and that so as to 
imply that they had re-assembled from their flight, and were waiting 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 699 

to see what would happen on this day. But it is evident from John, 
that both Peter and John himself were away from the rest, probably 
at the latter's house, where John would naturally remain to comfort 
his new-found mother, and where his friend, disgraced in the eyes of 
the other disciples, would find a refuge for his remorse. To them 
Mary had brought word that the sepulchre was empty ; and, while 
the other women were giving their fuller tidings to the rest of the 
Apostles, Peter and John ran to the sepulchre to see for themselves. 
We trace something of the peculiar character of each in the beauti- 
fully simple narrative of John. The ardent affection of " the disciple 
whom Jesus loved " carried him first to the sepulchre : he looked in 
and saw the grave-clothes, but hesitated to enter : while Peter, coming 
up, at once went in and saw the linen clothes lying as they had been 
left, and the napkin that had been about the head of Jesus folded 
together by itself. John then entered and saw the same spectacle ; 
and while Peter only wondered, John believed ; for, as he himself 
takes care to tell us, the disciples had not yet understood the pro- 
phecy of his resurrection. 

VII. Second appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene at the Sepul- 
chre. While Peter and John returned home, Mary, who had 
followed them back to the sepulchre, stood by its entrance, as the 
words just quoted have described. Looking into the sepulchre as she 
wept, she saw two angels sitting, at the head and the feet, where the 
body of Jesus had lain. To their inquiry why she wept, she answered, 
11 Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where 
they have laid him ;" and she was turning away, to leave the 
sepulchre in despair, when she saw Jesus standing before her, though 
she knew him not, even when he asked her why she wept. Taking 
him for the keeper of the garden, she earnestly entreated him to tell 
her whither he had removed the body. The one word, " Mary" 
from the lips of Jesus, recalled her to herself, and turning so as to 
have a full view of him for the first time, she replied, " Rabboni ! " 
that is, " Master ! " and would have embraced him. But, with the 
mysterious injunction, " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended 
to my Father," he sent her to forewarn his brethren of his ascension. 
But even at this second testimony the disciples remained incredulous. 

VIII. Third appearance of Jesus — to St. Peter. St. Paul states, 
immediately after the fact of our Lord's resurrection, " that he was 
seen of Cephas," before he appeared to the other Apostles. This ap- 
pearance is also mentioned incidentally, but very emphatically, by St. 
Luke, in connection with the journey to Emmaus. 



700 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

IX. The Journey to Emmaus — our Lord's fourth appearance. This 
is briefly mentioned by St. Mark ; but the deeply interesting narra- 
tive of St. Luke gives us a view of the disciples' state of mind on 
this memorable day. Two of them, Clopas and another, left the city 
after the visits paid to the sepulchre by the women and by Peter and 
John, and walked to Emmaus, a village about seven miles from Jeru- 
salem. Their only object seems to have been, to talk freely with each 
other respecting the bearing of the recent events on the question of 
the Messiahship of Jesus; and the doubtful result of their discussions 
is expressed in the exclamation, " But we trusted that it had been he 
which should have redeemed Israel ! " As they were thus engaged, 
Jesus himself joined them ; but a spell was upon their eyes, so that 
they did not know him. Every reader of the Gospel is familiar with 
what followed, — the statement of their anxious reasonings ; his rebuke 
of their ignorance and unbelief, and his exposition of the Scripture 
which foretold his sufferings and glory ; their pressing him to stay 
with them at the village ; and his being made known to them by 
blessing and breaking the bread at their evening meal. They hastened 
back to Jerusalem, and found the Apostles assembled with other dis- 
ciples at their evening meal, in a strangely mingled state of doubt 
and wonder ; for, while some met them with the news, " The Lord is 
risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon," their own full account of 
his converse with them was still received with unbelief. 

X. Our Lord's fifth appearance — to the assembled Apostles, except 
Thomas. It was at this very crisis of their perplexity, that Jesus 
crowned his separate appearances by a manifestation of himself to the 
Apostles, and those disciples who were with them. His sudden ap- 
pearance in their midst, the doors of the room being shut fast for fear 
of the Jews, alarmed them with the idea that they saw a spirit, though 
he greeted them with the words, " Peace be unto you ! " But he 
called them to feel his body, and showed them the wounds in his 
hands and feet and side. As they still doubted, he ate food before 
them ; and then he opened their minds to see the fulfilment of all 
that had been spoken of him in the Law, the Prophets, and the 
Psalms ; and to know their own mission as the witnesses of his resur- 
rection, and the preachers of repentance and remission of sins in his 
name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Then by the sign of 
breathing on them (literally suspiration), he indicated the conferring 
of that gift of the Holy Spirit, which was actually to descend upon 
them after his ascension, and for which he bade them to wait at Jeru- 
salem ; and he gave them the authority of remitting and retaining 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. T01 

sins. This "great commission" was repeated afterward; but Mark, 
who mentions only three of our Lord's appearances, and this as the 
last, refers to this occasion also the promise of the power of working 
miracles. Such was our Lord's last appearance to his disciples on the 
day of his resurrection. 

Sunday, the 24th of Nisan, April 16th — 

XL Christ's second appearance to the assembled disciples, with 
Thomas — the sixth in all. Facts are sometimes of themselves strong 
arguments; and such is our finding the disciples again assembled on 
the first day of the following week, and our Lord again appearing in 
the midst of them. Their mere meeting may have been continued from 
day to day, but our Saviour's blessing this meeting with his presence 
goes far to mark the Lord's Day as sacred. It was then that the incredu- 
lous Thomas was taught by the evidence of his own senses, not only to 
share his brethren's faith, but to go beyond them by recognizing in the 
Lord's resurrection a proof of his divinity. But Jesus did not grant 
the proof that Thomas required without pronouncing a higher blessing 
upon those who are content to believe on the testimony of others. 

XII. Third appearance of Jesus to the Apostles [seven of them) 
by the Lake of Galilee — the seventh in all. The Evangelists now 
cease to specify days. St, Matthew tells us that the eleven disciples 
went away into Galilee, as they had been commanded when first the 
resurrection was announced to them ; but their meeting with Jesus in 
the mountain he had appointed them must have been subsequent to 
that morning by the Lake of Galilee, of which St. John has given us 
so full and touching an account. Seven of the Apostles — Peter, 
Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two others who are not 
named, had returned to their avocations as fishermen, when Jesus 
revealed himself to them in a manner strikingly similar to that of 
their former calling, by the sign of a miraculous draught of fishes. 
The one striking difference, that now the net did not break, showed 
the coming of the time when they were to be indeed " fishers of men." 
It was then that our Lord drew from Peter the avowal of his love, 
repeated thrice as the revocation of his threefold denial, and restored 
him to his place among the disciples by the special commission, also 
thrice repeated, " Feed my sheep ! " adding the prediction of his 
martyrdom, but rebuking his affectionate curiosity concerning the fate 
of John. The saying, (( If I will that he tarry till I come, what is 
that to thee ? " is a purely hypothetical case, put to repel a curious 
desire to know what he reserved to his own appointment. 

XIII. The eighth appearance of Jesus — to the great body of his 



T02 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

disciples in Galilee. St. Matthew continues the statement just quoted 
by saying that the eleven disciples went out to a mountain in Galilee, 
where Jesus had appointed them ; and when they saw him they wor- 
shipped him, but some doubted. Though Matthew mentions only 
the eleven, he can scarcely mean the last statement to apply to them, 
after the removal of the last remains of their incredulity in the case of 
Thomas. It is evident, from comparing the Gospels, that, in several 
statements which refer to the body of the disciples, the eleven are par- 
ticularly named, because they were specially the appointed witnesses of 
Christ's resurrection. All that we see of their life during this interval 
confirms the view that the Apostles were in no way separated from 
the other disciples. At the beginning of the last chapter of Matthew, 
the message, first of the angel and then of Christ himself, is to " the 
disciples " and " his brethren," not to the Apostles only ; and the 
Evangelist clearly records this meeting in Galilee as the fulfilment of 
that message. There is, therefore, no difficulty in identifying this 
interview with the appearance of Jesus to " above five hundred breth- 
ren at once," mentioned by St. Paul, who appeals to the fact that 
some of them were still living when he wrote. This number agrees 
well with that assigned by St. Luke to the Church at Jerusalem ; for 
as these were one hundred and twenty, and as the greater number of 
our Lord's converts were made in Galilee, five hundred and upward 
is a reasonable number for those of Galilee, with the Apostles, and 
such others as were able to accompany them from Judsea. 

This then was the great interview of Jesus with his disciples, of 
which he had spoken even before his death, and to which they were 
summoned from the moment of his resurrection. Its scene was Gali- 
lee, where Jesus had commenced his course of public teaching and 
where his life had been chiefly spent ; and as he had opened his public 
ministry on a mountain, by the discourse which set forth the condi- 
tions of discipleship, so he closed it on a mountain, by the commission 
which he based upon his own unlimited authority, "All power is given 
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples 
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you : and lo, I am with you always 
unto the end of the world." It follows from the above argument that 
this commission was given to the disciples, as such, and not to the 
Apostles only; and this is true also of the promise of miraculous 
powers, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, which are recorded respect- 
ively by Mark and John. 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. T03 

XIV. Christ's ninth appearance — to James (the Less). Immediately 
after mentioning this interview, St. Paul adds the words " after that, 
he was seen of James," a special notice, which agrees well with the 
importance assigned to James, as being, like Peter and John, one of 
the " Pillars " of the Church. This appearance may be referred to 
Jerusalem, with the more probability, as James was not one among the 
Apostles at the Lake of Galilee. Nor does it seem unlikely that it 
was one of several appearances to individual disciples, omitted by the 
Evangelists, who have recorded only those needful to establish the 
great facts of Christ's resurrection, and of his commission to the 
Apostles. 

XV. Our Lord's last interview with the Apostles and his 
Ascension — his tenth appearance. The last scene of all was 
reserved for the eyes of the Apostles only, as the specially appointed 
witnesses of Christ's resurrection and ascension. St. Peter lays stress 
upon the fact that, when God had raised Jesus from the dead, " he 
shewed him, openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen be- 
fore of God y even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose 
from the dead." The superiority of such testimony to any which 
could have been furnished by a more public display of the risen 
Saviour to all the people has been ably demonstrated by Bishop 
Horsley. Neither Matthew nor John relates our Saviour's ascension, 
though the latter gives, in the Apocalypse, a glowing description of 
his state of glory. Mark simply says that " he was received up into 
heaven and sat on the right hand of God." St. Luke describes the 
whole scene, briefly in his Gospel, and fully in the Acts of the 
Apostles. 

The whole time during which Jesus " shewed himself after his pas- 
sion by many infallible proofs " was forty days, a period which has 
evidently some mystical signification, being the same as the time spent 
by Moses and by Elijah in Mount Horeb, and by Christ himself in 
the wilderness of temptation, and corresponding to the number of years 
that the people had wandered in the Desert. As they passed an ap- 
pointed interval of trial between their baptism to Moses in the Red 
Sea and their entrance on the promised land, so our Lord himself was 
subjected to a forty days' trial of his faith and patience, between his 
baptism and his showing to Israel ; and again, after his final baptism 
of suffering a like interval was interposed before he entered into glory, 
to try the faith of his disciples and to work in them full conviction of 
the great truth they had to preach. In what secret retirement he took 
up his abode during these forty days we are not told : all that con- 



704 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

cerns us is the time he spent with his disciples, " speaking of the things 
pertaining to the kingdom of God." 

At last, on the fortieth day, the disciples were assembled with Jesus 
at Jerusalem, it would seem by a special appointment, and he com- 
manded them not to depart thence till they received the promise of 
the Father, the baptism with the Holy Ghost. After rebuking their 
desire to know whether the time was come for him to restore the 
kingdom to Israel, he promised them power, by that baptism of the 
Spirit, for the work they had to do for his name in Jerusalem, Judaea, 
and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 

Either during or after this conversation, he led them out — over the 
very ground he had traversed with them six weeks before, when he 
entered the city to suffer — as far as Bethany, on the further slope of 
the Mount of Olives, and so out of view of the city ; and there, as 
with uplifted hands he gave them his parting blessing, a cloud inter- 
posed between him and them, like the chariot and horses of fire that 
separated Elijah from Elisha ; and upborne on this aerial car, he was 
wafted from their sight through the vault of heaven. 

Meanwhile the disciples scarcely recollected that this was but what 
he had himself foretold : — " What and if ye shall see the Son of Man 
ascend up where he was before ?" They stood gazing up after him as 
if he had been lost forever, till they were awakened from their stupor 
by the appearance of two angels standing by them, and declaring that 
this same Jesus, who was taken from them into heaven, should so 
come in like manner as they had seen him go into heaven : — words 
which exclude any other than the final advent of our Lord, and teach 
us that he shall be seen descending from the riven sky, as plainly, and 
as unexpectedly, as he passed into it from their eyes. With this 
agrees his own warning of " the sign of the Son of Man, coming in 
the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory," and the words of 
the final Scripture prophecy, " Behold He corneth with clouds, and 
every eye shall see Him." 

Having worshipped their glorified Lord, they returned from the 
Mount of Olives to Jerusalem with great joy ; and while expecting 
the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, they spent their time continually 
in the Temple, praising and blessing God. 

We cannot more fitly conclude this narrative of our Saviour's life 
on earth, in which we have aimed to bring into one view the records 
of the four Evangelists, with as much brevity as was consistent with 
the omission of no important fact, than by calling attention to the 
two points insisted on by St. John : — First, that we have only a small 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 705 

part of our Lord's sayings and doings in the presence of his disciples, 
for the world itself could hardly have contained the record of the 
whole ; but, finally, that all we do possess has been written with this 
one sole object, " That we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God, and that, believing, we might have life 
through His name." 



45 



106 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



BOOK IX. 

HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES; OR, THE FOUXDIXG OF THE CHRIS- 
TIAN CHURCH. 




CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE TO THE DISPERSION OF THE CHRISTIANS FROM! 

JERUSALEM. 

[a. d. 30-37.] 

FTEB, the ascension of the Lord into Heaven, the Eleven 
Apostles, having returned from the Mount of Olives to Jeru- 
V salem, assembled in an upper room, with the mother and 
z^o brethren of Jesus, and the women who had ministered unto 
Him, and there abode in prayer and supplication. Thus 
they spent their evenings ; and in the day time, " they were contin- 
ually in the Temple, praising and blessing God," doubtless declaring 
Christ's resurrection and ascension to the people. These, 
then, with the other disciples resident in Jerusalem, made 
up the one hundred and twenty brethren ; and at first sight they seem 
to act as the whole Church, in the election of the new Apostle. But 
a closer consideration will, perhaps, show that this election was con- 
ducted by the Apostles, in the presence and with the sanction of the 
brethren at Jerusalem, rather than as an act of the whole Church. 
On the day of Pentecost, however, when the Holy Spirit was poured 
out on the disciples, the great body of the believers were no doubt 
present, having come up to keep the feast at Jerusalem ; and it was 
then that they were first seen in public as the Church of Christ. 

Among the Apostles and disciples, Peter occupies the place assigned 
to him by Christ when he gave him the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven. It was his office to open the doors of the Church, first to 
the Jews and then to the Gentiles, while his brethren labored equally 
with him to bring the converts in. While waiting for the Spirit to 
qualify them for the work, Peter invited them to fill up the vacancy 
in the number of the Apostles caused by the fall of Judas. He lays 
down the first essential qualification for the apostolic office — the 
having been one of the companions of Christ from his baptism by 






THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE. TOT 

John till his ascension — and declares the object of the election, "to be 
a witness with us of his resurrection." Two such men were chosen, 
either by the Apostles or by the disciples, whose choice in either case 
supplied a testimony to their character; but the ultimate decision was 
referred to God himself by the sacred trial of the lot, accompanied by 
prayer. The two were Joseph, also called Barsabas, and surnamed 
the Just, and Matthias ; and the lot fell upon the latter. 

Ten days after the ascension, the time arrived which God 
had appointed for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the 
disciples. "The day of Pentecost was fully come;" the first and 
great day of the feast of the full ingathering of the harvest. It was 
called by the Jews the " Feast of Weeks," and in Greek Pentecost 
(the fiftieth day) because it fell on the day after the completion of 
seven weeks from the second, or great day, of the feast of unleavened 
bread. It brought to Jerusalem a greater concourse of Jews and 
proselytes from all parts of the world than any other of the three 
great festivals. Hence the season was as well chosen for the first 
proclamation of our Lord's resurrection and ascension, as its occasion 
and its rites were symbolical of the first-fruit of the spiritual harvest, 
which were offered to God as the result of Peter's preaching. 

On this day, the disciples, including those who had come up to the 
feast, were all gathered by common consent ; when there was heard 
the sound of a rushing wind, as it were descending from heaven, and 
filling the house where they w T ere sitting, while lambent flames, 
shaped like cloven tongues, were seen upon all their heads. These 
signs at once furnished to the senses a double evidence of some divine 
power, and exactly corresponded to the figurative language chosen by 
Jesus to describe the operations of the Holy Spirit : — a baptism of 
fire — a wind blowing where God wills, whose sound we hear, but 
cannot trace its path. That Spirit was given to qualify the disciples 
for their work as witnesses of Christ, as he had said, " enduing them 
with power from on high." It was to work within, " guiding them 
into all truth ;" not only enabling them to remember all that Jesus 
had said to them, but opening their minds to understand the truths 
concealed as yet under his words. With spiritual discernment it 
brought spiritual life, all those moral virtues and graces which St. 
Pauls calls "the fruit of the Spirit." 

These inward gifts of the Spirit remained to be proved by the 
future course of the disciples ; but other external gifts were at once 
made manifest, as a public proof of their endowment for their work. 
These were the u extraordinary gifts of the Spirit;" gifts, that is, 



108 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

miraculous in their nature; and, like other miraculous works, they 
were designed partly indeed for their direct use, but still more as the 
sign of a divine mission. Perhaps, the most striking of these gifts, 
and certainly the one best suited to the present occasion, was the 
power of "speaking with tongues," that is, in foreign languages. 
This gift, conferred on illiterate Galileans, at once enabled them to 
address the various strangers assembled at the feast, each in his own 
language, and gave to those so addressed a convincing proof that God 
was with the speakers, and to themselves the assurance that they 
were to preach the ' Gospel to all nations and kindreds and tongues 
under heaven. How far the gift was permanent in those who re- 
ceived it does not appear. The statements of St. Paul prove that it 
was afterward by no means common to the whole body of believers, 
as it appears to have been on this day. That it was not intended to 
supersede the use of acquired learning, is proved by the choice of 
Paul himself as the Apostle of the Greeks ; and the books of the New 
Testament bear marks of dialect, influenced, to say the least, by the 
natural powers of the writers. 

This gift, bestowed at the moment of the descent of the cloven 
tongues of fire, about the time of the morning sacrifice, was immedi- 
ately used by the Apostles and disciples in uttering the praises of 
God. The news soon spread through the city, and the multitude 
flocked together to the scene, confounded at hearing these Galileans 
speak in several languages. The passage furnishes an interesting 
enumeration of the provinces, and regions even beyond the Roman 
empire, in which Jews were found. The enumeration is not made at 
random, but follows a regular order from East to West, beginning 
with the Parthians, Medes and Elamites, beyond the Roman empire, 
and the Mesopotamians on the frontier ; then, crossing the desert, to 
Judcea (with which we may suppose Syria to be included) ; next pro- 
ceeding northward, and circling round the peninsula of Asia Minor, 
we have Cappadocia, Pontus, proconsular Asia, Phrygia, and Pam- 
phylia ; whence the transition is natural across the Mediterranean, to 
Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene; where, reaching the 
Western Provinces, the Mediterranean is recrossed to Rome itself; 
and the strength of the Jewish element in the population of Italy is 
attested by the phrase, "strangers of Pome, Jews and Proselytes ;" 
and the list is concluded, somewhat less regularly, by the Cretes and 
Arabians. 

An attempt was made to discredit the general feeling that all this 
had some strange meaning, by the taunting suggestion that the men 



THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE. T09 

were drunk with new wine. Upon this Peter spoke out ; and, having 
repelled the charge by an appeal to the early hour (9 o'clock), a time 
at which none begin drinking in the East, he declared that what they 
saw was the fulfilment of Joel's great prophecy concerning the descent 
of the Spirit upon all flesh in the last days ; when wonders should be 
shown in heaven and earth, that men might call upon the name of 
Jehovah and be saved. Then plainly charging the people with their 
wickedness in crucifying Jesus, he declares his resurrection by the 
power of God to be the fulfilment of David's prophecy of Christ ; and, 
inferring from that prophecy the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand 
of God, he points to this which they now saw and heard as his first 
gift to men, and as a proof " that God hath made that same Jesus, 
whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." 

The appeal to their consciences was the more striking as, besides 
the rulers resident at Jerusalem, many other Jews, who had joined in 
the scenes enacted at the Passover, were now re-assembled at Jerusa- 
lem after six weeks' interval for reflection. At once the sting of con- 
viction pierced their hearts ; and their cry to Peter and the Apostles, 
" Men and brethren, what shall we do ? " was answered by the call to 
repentance, to be signified, as under John, by baptism, but now into 
the name of Christ, that their sins might be remitted and they might 
receive the Holy Ghost. This offer of mercy was followed by the 
assurance which, stamping upon the Christian Church the like family 
and social character to that which marked the community of Israel, 
extended the blessing to the Gentiles also : — " The promise is unto 
you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as 
the Lord our God shall call." Such were the chief points of this first 
apostolic sermon ; but much more was added, and all was concluded 
with exhorting such as would to come out and separate themselves 
from this perverse generation. All who "received the word," that is, 
who simply professed faith in the truth preached by Peter, were bap- 
tized and added to the Church ; and the pentecostal first-fruits thus 
offered to God were 3000 souls.* 

Nor was this a passing excitement. The new converts became 
faithful disciples, adhering to the teachings of the Apostles and the 
fellowship of the Church ; observing Christ's institution of breaking 
bread together, and constant in prayer. The four elements included 
in this summary of the daily life of the primitive Church deserve 

•• It must be remembered that a large number of these would leave Jerusalem 
after the feast, and would spread the glad tidings throughout the country. 



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THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE. Ul 

special notice : — (i.) The Apostles' doctrine included doubtless the 
whole body of divine truth, which was based on the writings of the 
Old Testament, viewed in the new light of the Spirit bestowed upon 
the Apostles to lead them into all truth, as well as their own testimony 
to the life and death and especially the resurrection of the Lord, (ii.) 
The Fellowship — though the word is often used in the wider generic 
sense which is now most familiar to us — seems here, as in many other 
passages, to denote that communication of the goods of this life which 
was needful to supply the necessities of the poorer brethren, and the 
collection of which seems thus early to have formed a part of their 
united worship, (iii.) The breaking of bread alludes to the social 
custom which sprang up among this small community, severed much 
from the world around, of eating together daily, as well as to their 
use of such opportunities for celebrating the Lord's Supper ; while 
(iv.) the distinct mention of Prayer vindicates its place as an act of 
common Christian worship against the specious fallacy that it is a 
matter solely between each man and his God. So great a movement 
struck awe even into those who did not join it ; and this feeling was 
kept alive by the miracles which the Apostles wrought. The first 
practical fruit of the new faith was seen in a reform of one of the 
worst faults of the Jewish character — its selfish rapacity and oppres- 
sion of the poor. Forming a closely united community, they regarded 
their possessions as given for their common use, according as the 
necessities of each required. To this so-called community of goods 
our attention will presently be recalled. Meanwhile w r e behold the 
Church in its firs^ new-created purity, daily increased by sincere con- 
verts, and enjoying harmony within and the favor of the people with- 
out, before the beginning of persecution or declension. 

The healing of a man above forty years old, who had been lame 
from his birth, by Peter and John at the " Beautiful " gate of the 
Temple, in the presence of all the people who were assembling to 
evening prayer, gave Peter another opportunity of preaching the 
Saviour, in whose name alone the miracle was performed. His dis- 
course was interrupted by the priests of the Sadducean party, and the 
captain of the guard of Levites that kept order in the Temple, who 
seized the Apostles, and carried them off to prison. The pretext was, 
no doubt, that they excited a tumult in the Temple, but their real 
offence was preaching the resurrection from the dead in the name of 
Jesus. But their arrest did not prevent their word being received by 
no less than 5000 believers. 

In presence of the Sanhedrim, assembled the next morning under 



T12 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Annas and Caiaphas, the high-priests, with their Sadducean kindred, 
Peter boldly avowed, for John and himself, that the miracle had been 
performed in the name of Jesus, who, though crucified by them, had 
been raised by God ; and whose name alone was given under heaven 
for the salvation of men. Then was fulfilled the promise of Christ, 
when he bade the disciples, on being brought before courts and rulers, 
to take no thought what they should say, for he would give them a 
mouth and wisdom which their adversaries should be unable to resist. 
Their freedom of speech, contrasted with their want of letters, left the 
council no doubt that they were worthy followers of Jesus ; and the 
presence of the healed man forbade their denial of the miracle. So 
they resolved to try half- measures, commanding the Apostles to cease 
from speaking in the name of Jesus. Peter and John plainly refused 
the compromise : — " Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but 
speak the things which we have seen and heard." Still the impression 
made upon the people by the miracle rendered it dangerous to attempt 
severity ; and the council let the Apostles go, after renewing their 
threatenings. The assembled Church received them with a thanks- 
giving, which forms the earliest example of united Christian prayer ; 
and in which three things deserve especial notice : — the use of Scrip- 
ture models, including a direct quotation from the second Psalm ; the 
recital of facts, as well as the language of actual supplication ; and 
the exercise, in offering the latter, of that freedom of speech for the 
increase of which they prayed. The prayer was answered by another 
sign of God's presence, the shaking of the place in which they met, 
as Sinai was shaken of old ; it was answered by a new outpouring of 
the Holy Spirit. The work of the Apostles was resumed with fresh 
power ; and the Church was endued still more manifestly with divine 
grace and harmony. 

The poor, who formed the great body of the disciples, were pre- 
served from want by sharing the wealth of the rest, according to their 
necessities. 

Not that the first Christians adopted the fantastic and impracticable 
theory, known in modern times by the name of communism, divesting 
themselves of individual property, and throwing all they had and 
earned into a common stock. They had indeed a common fund, which 
was divided by the Apostles among the poor ; and those who carried 
into full effect the principle that " nought of the things which he pos- 
sessed was his own " sold their lands and houses, and laid the price at 
the Apostles' feet. But that this practice was not binding upon all is 



THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE. U3 

proved by the stress laid on the self-sacrifice of Barnabas, and by the 
express declaration of Peter to Ananias, that he might have kept 
the land, if he had chosen, or even have used its price after it was 
sold. St. Luke's language is indeed universal ; but universal state- 
ments are always to be interpreted by more specific information. 
What was universally accepted was the principle that none should 
want while any of their brethren had the means of helping them ; 
but, in carrying out this principle, they used that Christian liberty 
of beneficence which is far more effective than an enforced equal- 
ity of wealth. 

And now we come to the second great crime which 
stained the profession of Christianity, — the treason of Judas 
having been the first, — and which called down a judgment as signal. 
As among the followers of Christ on earth, so in the early Church, 
the love of money was the root of evil ; it was mingled with love of 
praise ; and falsehood was the means of gratifying both. The story 
of Ananias and Sapphira is too familiar to need relation. They seem 
to have been prompted by the desire to share the credit gained by 
Joses, surnamed Barnabas, a Levite of Cyprus, who sold his estate, 
and gave its price to the Apostles. They attempted to gain that 
praise, and yet to secure themselves from want, by keeping back a 
part of the price of their land, and bringing only the rest to the 
Apostles, — an acted lie, had it been left there. But Peter was moved 
by the Spirit to proclaim the deceit ; and, so far from extenuating it 
because the lie had not been uttered, he passed on all such prevarica- 
tion the awful sentence, " Thou hast not lied unto man, but unto 
God." The conduct of Sapphira is distinguished by the effrontery 
with which, in reply to Peter's question, she uttered the direct lie. 
The judgment that fell on both was analogous to the "cutting off a 
soul from the congregation " under the old dispensation, and gave, 
thus early in the history of the Church, a terrible warning of God's 
absolute requirement of sincerity in all his people. It caused great 
fear within the Church, and deterred the worldly-minded from joining 
the disciples. But still the work of conversion went on. The Apos- 
tles and their followers assembled daily in the portico of the Temple 
named after Solomon. Their miracles were multiplied. The sick 
were carried on beds into the street, that at least Peter's shadow, as he 
passed by, might fall upon them ; and multitudes were brought into 
Jerusalem from the villages, and were all healed. 

And this was all that the Sadducees had gained by their warning 
to Peter and John. Their indignation got the better of their policy, 



714 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

and they threw all the Apostles into prison. An angel opened the 
prison doors, and set them free during the night; and when the 
Sanhedrim assembled in the morning, it was to hear that the prison 
had been found secure and guarded, but empty ; and that the prison- 
ers were at that moment preaching in the Temple. Fear of the 
people again prevented open violence ; but the Apostles came at the 
request of the captain of the temple-guard, and were placed before the 
Sanhedrim, whom the high-priest now convened, together with the 
Senate of Elders, that venerable body which had preserved its 
authority as representing the people through all the changes of the 
Jewish state. In this second assembly, therefore, we see no longer 
only the Sanhedrim, headed by the Sadducean rulers, but the chiefs 
of the whole people taking part in persecuting the Apostles. To the 
charge that they were trying to bring upon the people the blood of 
Christ — that blood which these very men bad invoked on their own 
heads — Peter replied with the same boldness as before, but with a 
different result. Stung by his words, they were about to vote the 
death of the Apostles, when they were checked by the advice of a 
Pharisee named Gamaliel. This man, renowned as one of the 
greatest doctors of the law, and still more as the preceptor of St. Paul, 
gave the sage counsel to wait and see what would come of the new 
doctrine, if let alone. It was an age of pretenders, such as Theudas 
and Judas of Galilee, who had ended by breaking out into open 
revolt and being destroyed by the power of Pome. Such too w T ould 
be the end of these men, if they were impostors, — an end which 
would save the rulers trouble and danger. But another alternative 
was possible. The thing might be indeed from God ; and if so, to 
overthrow it would be impossible, to resist it would incur the guilt 
of fighting against God. The emphatic clearness with which Gama- 
liel puts this, as far more than a bare possibility, throws a flood of 
light on the convictions of the learned and thinking men among the 
Pharisees, and helps us to form a juster estimate of Saul's guilt as a 
persecutor. The jealousy between the Sadducees and Pharisees 
moved the latter for the time to protect the teachers of a resurrection ; 
but they soon surpassed their rivals in the fury of persecution. The 
advice of Gamaliel was adopted by the Council, whose anger needed, 
however, to be gratified by some punishment; so they inflicted on the 
Apostles the scourging permitted by the law, and let them go, again 
forbidding them to speak in the name of Jesus. Assured by this 
commencement of a share in their Saviour's suffering and shame, that 
he deemed them worthy to follow him, they continued, as before, to 



THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 715 

teach and preach Jesus Christ, both in the Temple and from house 
to house. 

Thus far we have met with no indications of any institutions for 
the government of the Church. None had been prescribed by Jesus ; 
but he had taught his followers those principles which would guide 
them to institutions as they were wanted. As yet no such want had 
been felt : all had been supplied by the presence of the Apostles and 
the unbroken harmony of the brethren. But now came in the hu- 
miliating fact, which has ever since cast its shadow over the Church, 
that every development of doctrine and of discipline is the fruit of 
some error or imperfection. Doubtless more is gained than lost by 
the working of this principle ; chiefly because it leaves all the glory 
to God, and shames man's boast of growing perfection. 

There were two sorts of persons in the Church, the Hebrews and 
Hellenists. In their widest significance, the words Hellenist and Hel- 
lenism described that engrafting of Greek influence upon a native 
stock which resulted from Alexander's conquest of Western Asia. 
The mere use of the Greek language, as it came to prevail in the con- 
quered countries, converted a true native into a " Hellenist." Thus 
the Jews of Palestine came to apply the term to their brethren — 
though of Jewish blood as pure as theirs— who were scattered through- 
out the Gentile world. The use of a distinct name was sure to aid 
the sense of fancied superiority on the part of those possessing the 
Holy Land, the sacred city and the Temple ; a claim which the Hel- 
lenists of course resented. These jealousies were carried into the 
Christian Church, which numbered many Hellenist converts as the 
result of Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost. The rapid in- 
crease of numbers had made it very difficult for the Apostles to dis- 
tribute the common fund ; and the first sufferers were naturally the 
widows, who, from the position held by women in the East, were at 
once the most needy and the least able to press their claims. It is 
very probable that the Hellenist widows, in particular, may have been 
neglected through being personally little known. At all events, this 
feeding rose up among the Hellenists ; and they complained, not 
against the Apostles, but against the Hebrews, perhaps those who as- 
sisted the Apostles in the daily distribution. Instead of clinging to 
the influence conferred by these "temporalities," the Apostles wel- 
comed the occasion for their relief from the " service of tables," which 
hindered their entire devotion to prayer and the ministry of the word. 
They desired the brethren to choose from among themselves seven 
men, at once held in esteem for their character, and distinguished for 



716 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

wisdom and spiritual gifts, who were ordained to this office by the 
Apostles, with prayer and the imposition of hands. 

Their names were Stephen, who is especially mentioned as full 
of faith and of the Holy Ghost, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, 
Parmenas and Nicolas. The last was a proselyte of Antioch, and the 
Greek names of the rest favor the idea that they were Hellenists, 
which would give an additional security against any further ground 
for complaint. 

There can be no reasonable doubt that these were the first Deacons 
of the Church, though that name is not used in the narrative. 
Doubtless the title followed the exercise of the office ; and those who 
were at first called " the Seven " received the name of " servants " 
from the service they performed. In the Epistles of Paul, the name 
has already passed into a distinct official title, and the qualifications 
which he assigns to deacons correspond exactly to the functions of 
" the Seven." 

This institution gave a fresh impulse to the Gospel. We have al- 
ready seen a Levite (Barnabas) among the converts ; but now the 
new religion was embraced by many of the priests : — " The word of 
God increased ; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusa- 
lem greatly ; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the 
faith." It was not merely that the Apostles obtained more freedom ; 
but the deacons themselves came forward with a zeal suited to their 
eminent position. Chosen for their spiritual gifts, they were not 
likely to confine themselves to duties merely secular. Philip, "one 
of the seven," is also called " Philip the Evangelist ; " and he was 
doubtless the same who converted the Samaritans, and received the 
Ethiopian eunuch into the Church. Still more conspicuous was 
Stephen for his faith and the power of his teaching, and the wonders 
and miracles he performed. His zeal soon earned for him the glory 
of being the Protomartyr of the Christian Church. 

The success of Stephen was, for some reason, peculiarly 
odious to the Hellenistic Jews, who formed a sort of com- 
bined opposition to him. These opponents belonged to " the syna- 
gogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of 
those from Cilicia and Asia." The Cyrenians and Alexandrians re- 
presented the Jews of Africa, who were very numerous in those two 
capitals. The Asiatics represent those of Western Asia in general, 
and not only of the province ; and the express mention of the Cilicians 
prepares us for the part taken by Saul of Tarsus. Hitherto the 
Sadducees had taken the lead in resisting Christianity, chiefly from 



THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE. m 

motives of policy; and the Pharisees had stood aloof, feeling some 
favor toward the teachers of a resurrection. But now the latter party 
were committed to the conflict by the zeal of the Hellenists for the 
traditions of the law. Worsted in argument by Stephen's wisdom 
and spiritual power, they suborned (as against his Master) false wit- 
nesses, who accused him before the Sanhedrim of blasphemy against 
the Temple and the Law, in saying that Jesus of Nazareth should 
destroy the holy place and change the institutions of Moses. The 
presence which Christ had promised to his disciples was shown, before 
Stephen opened his lips, by the very aspect of his countenance, which 
seemed to all in the council like that of an angel. 

The defence which he made, on the invitation of the high-priest, is 
one of the most memorable passages of the New Testament. It places 
the truth of Christianity on the basis of its relation to the history of 
the Old Covenant. That history is recounted, from the call of Abra- 
ham to the mission of Moses, to prove that, in the whole process of 
forming the Jewish state and laws, there was a gradually developed 
covenant and promise of better things, which was as constantly re- 
sisted by the unbelief and apostasy of the people. While thus laying 
the ground for retorting upon his accusers the charge that it was they 
and their fathers who had made void the law, he displays in the dis- 
obedienca of the Israelites to Moses a prophetic sign of their own re- 
bellion against the prophet whom God raised up, as he had raised 
him, nay, whom they had actually resisted in the person of the Angel 
who was with the congregation in the wilderness. 

Then, as bearing upon the other charge of blasphemously foretel- 
ling the destruction of the Temple, he shows how, though they had 
the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, they had plunged into 
every form of idolatry, and taken up the tabernacle of Moloch ; and, 
passing on to the bringing in of the tabernacle by Joshua, and Solo- 
mon's performance of his father's desire to build a house for God, he 
comes boldly to the great point in dispute. Not in his own words, 
but in those used by Solomon himself at the very dedication of the 
Temple, and re-echoed by Isaiah, he declares that the Most High 
Jehovah has a truer and far nobler dwelling than any house that man 
can build him, — the temple of the universe which his own hand hath 
made, and of whose materials man can at best frame some small part 
into a house, which is God's work before it is theirs. The inference 
from the whole argument is that hypocrisy lay at the root of their 
pretended zeal for the Law they had ever broken and the Temple they 
had constantly profaned, while blind to the spiritual sense and use of 



718 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

both. Overpowered with holy indignation, the accused becomes the 
accuser, denouncing his judges as the betrayers and murderers of the 
Just One, each one of whose prophets their fathers had persecuted 
and slain. The whole argument is summed up in the one phrase, 
" Ye stiff-necked " — the epithet applied by Moses to their fathers, — 
"ye" who, while boasting of circumcised, are " uncircumcised in heart 
and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost : as your fathers did, so 
do ye" The whole course of their history is brought to this point, 
that they themselves had never kept the law, which they falsely 
charged him with blaspheming, though they had " received it by the 
dispensation of angels." 

Stung to their very hearts, they threw off all the restraints of a judi- 
cial court, gnashing their teeth for rage, as they cut short his defence. 
Amid the tumult, Stephen stood gazing up to heaven, and saying, 
with calm rapture, — " Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son 
of Man standing on the right hand of God ;" — not sitting, as is else- 
where said, but as it were stepping forward to welcome the first 
martyr into heaven. Their rage now passed all bounds. Stopping 
their ears against his blasphemy, and not staying even to pass sentence, 
they rushed upon him as one man, hurried him out of the city, and 
stoned him to death. His last words were those of his Master on the 
cross, commending his spirit to the Lord Jesus himself, as to God, 
and praying for his murderers, that the sin might not be laid to their 
charge. "And when he had said this, he fell asleep" is the language 
in which the sacred writer closes the scene of violence with holy calm- 
ness, and with the glorious hope of an awakening to eternal life. The 
zeal and courage of the same class of converts to which Stephen him- 
self belonged, the Hellenists and proselytes, who are included under 
the general denomination of " devout men," honored his mangled 
remains with an amount of funeral state and lamentation expressed 
bv two words which are used ouly here in the Xew Testament. 

" The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." Xever was 
this more true than in the death of Stephen. Among the Hellenists 
of Cilicia, who had provoked the controversy, was "a young man 
named Saul," a Jew of Tarsus, of the tribe of Benjamin, of the 
purest descent, who had been brought up a disciple of the great 
Rabbin Gamaliel. We have his own testimony to that blind zeal for 
the law, which led him to take a part in Stephen's death only second 
to that of the witnesses themselves, by taking charge of their clothes, 
while they cast the first stones, as directed by the law ; and we have, 
too, his own bitter and repeated confession of that great syi. Y r et 



THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 119 

this was the very man raised up by God to supply the place of 
Stephen. St. Luke suggests this connection by the words, "And 
Saul was consenting to his death." 

The saying of Augustin — "Si Stephanus non orasset, ecclesia Paulum 
non haberet" — beautifully expresses the view of Stephen's position as 
the forerunner of St. Paul. But it is an aspect that has been much 
more forcibly drawn out in modern times. Not only was his martyr- 
dom (in all probability) the first means of converting St. Paul, in 
whose conversion Stephen's prayer for his murderers was fulfilled and 
whose conscience always bore the sting of that day's great crime ; but 
in his doctrine also he was the anticipator, as, had he lived, he would 
have been the propagator, of the new phase of Christianity, of which 
St. Paul became the main support. His denunciations of local wor- 
ship — the stress which he lays upon the spiritual side of Jewish history 
— his freedom in treating that history — the very turns of expression 
that he uses — are all Pauline. The discourses and epistles of St. 
Paul reproduce both the arguments and phraseology which he had 
heard from St. Stephen's lips ; for we cannot doubt that Paul was 
present in the Sanhedrim, though he was not qualified to vote. 

The martyrdom of Stephen forms an epoch in the early history of 
the Church, the date of which is the more interesting on account of its 
bearing upon St. Paul's life. But the narrative in the Acts supplies 
us with no chronological data, from the day of Pentecost in A. D. 30 
down to the famine under Claudius and the death of Herod Agrippa 
I. in A. D. 44. One tradition fixes the martyrdom of Stephen as 
early as A. d. 30 ; but it is quite incredible that the events of the 
first seven chapters of the Acts should have been crowded into a single 
year ; nor could so early a date be reconciled with the few certain 
indications concerning the period of Paul's conversion. That this 
event followed at no long interval after Stephen's martyrdom seems 
clear ; and various indications concur to place it somewhere within 
the limits of Caligula's four years' reign. Coming to narrower limits, 
we shall see presently that the strongest arguments and the best 
modern opinions concur in fixing the conversion of St. Paul about 
A. d. 37. Nor are we without some weighty independent evidence to 
confirm the data thus suggested for the martyrdom of St. Stephen. 
Such acts of violence, in contempt of the Roman prerogative of life 
and death, were usually perpetrated during a vacancy in the procura- 
torship of Judaea. An example occurs in the martyrdom of James 
the Just, in the interval between the death of Festus and the arrival 
of Albinus as his successor (a. d. 62); when just like Stephen and 






720 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

those who suffered after him, James and other Christians were 
condemned by the Sanhedrim, at the instance of the high-priest 
Ananus, and stoned to death. In the present case, the evidence for 
an interregnum in the procuratorship is all the stronger from the re- 
peated executions which marked the persecution that ensued on the 
death of Stephen. Now we are able to fix the date of such an inter- 
regnum. It was in the latter part of A. D. 36 that Pilate was sum- 
moned before Vitellius, the prefect of Syria, on the complaint of the 
Samaritans, against whom he had perpetrated his crowning outrage. 
He was deposed by Vitellius, and sent to Rome for trial by the em- 
peror ; but, before his arrival, Tiberius had died, on the 16th of 
March, A. D. 37. Pilate's departure from Judaea must, therefore, be 
placed just at the end of A. D. 36 ; and no successor arrived for a con- 
siderable time. Meanwhile, Vitellius visited Jerusalem, with Herod 
Antipas, at the Passover (March 19th) of A.D. 37; when he deposed 
Joseph Caiaphas, the creature of Pilate, from the high-priesthood. 
Having left the city on his return to Antioch, he received orders from 
Tiberius to aid Herod in his war against Aretas. Therefore, retracing 
his steps toward Arabia Petrsea, Vitellius was again at Jerusalem at 
Pentecost (May 9th). On the arrival of the news of the death of 
Tiberius, four days after the Feast, Vitellius left Jerusalem, abandon- 
ing the cause of Herod. Here, then, was just one of those opportuni- 
ties of which Jewish turbulence was ever ready to take advantage. 
Moreover, it was almost always at one of the great festivals that these 
outbreaks took place ; and such a season is indicated by the presence 
of a large body of Hellenists at Jerusalem, just as at the great Pente- 
cost of Acts ii., and at the Feast when Paul was seized. All this 
points to the Pentecost, May, A. D. 37, as the date of Stephen's mar- 
tyrdom ; but it would also be consistent with the general tenor of the 
argument to infer that the event took place either about the Passover 
of that year, or at the Feast of Tabernacles of A. D. 36, when Pilate's 
authority was tottering and he may have been ready to connive at 
any act of violence committed by" Caiaphas and his party. On the 
latter supposition, the period of anarchy following the disgrace of 
Pilate would prolong the opportunity for the persecution conducted 
by Saul. At all events, these arguments, with the mutual confirma- 
tion of the dates for the martyrdom of Stephen and the conversion of 
Saul, which evidently followed close upon it, seem clearly to bring 
both events within the compass of a year, from the autumn of A. D 36 
to the autumn of A. D. 37. 

This first triumph of the foes of Christianity gave the signal for a 



THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 721 

general persecution, into which Saul entered with the fiercest zeal, 
committing men and women alike to prison, scourging them in the 
synagogues, and trying to make them blaspheme the name of Christ, 
and giving his vote for the death of those on whom the Sanhedrim 
usurped the power of passing capital sentence. The result was a 
general dispersion of the disciples from Jerusalem, the Apostles, how- 
ever, remaining to watch over the common welfare. This movement 
was the first great cause of the Gospel being carried beyond the con- 
fines of Judaea : — " They that were scattered abroad went in different 
directions, preaching the word." We shall see presently that some of 
them went through Phoenicia into Syria as far as Antioch, and across 
to the island of Cyprus, confining their ministry at first to the Jews, 
but soon venturing to preach Christ to the Greeks at Antioch. Mean- 
while the narrative of St. Luke follows the progress of the Gospel in 
the Holy Land, through the three great steps of the conversion of the 
Samaritans, of the Ethiopian eunuch, and of the Roman centurion, 
both of whom were already proselytes. Thus early are the represen- 
tatives of races alien to the Jews, both at home and in the regions of 
the east, south and west, brought into the Church, while the conversion 
of Saul prepares for the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. 

The daily ministrations of relief probably ceased with the dispersion 
of the disciples ; and Philip, the worthy colleague of Stephen, went 
and preached Christ in the city of Samaria, a work which the Jewish 
prejudices of most of the disciples would have prevented their under- 
taking. How far our Lord's own ministry at Sychar (Shechem) had 
affected the Samaritans in general, we can hardly judge, unless perhaps 
from his rejection by one of their villages. But since that time, the 
people of the city had been entirely led away by the arts of a magician 
named Simon (usually called Simon Magus), who seems to have given 
himself out and to have been received as the Messiah. But his tricks 
of sorcery could bear no comparison with the simple power of Philip's 
miracles, casting out unclean spirits, and healing the palsied and the 
lame. The people received his preaching of the kingdom of God and 
the name of Jesus Christ with joyful unanimity, and both men and 
women were baptized. Simon, not the only impostor of his class who 
has seen gain in the profession of godliness — perhaps too, with the 
ordinary mixture of self-deception, fancying that he might learn new 
arts from Philip's superior skill — Simon was himself baptized, and 
remained with Philip, wondering at his miracles. Meanwhile, the 
tidings reached Jerusalem ; and Peter and John being sent by the 
Apostles to Samaria, conferred on the converts the gift of the Holy 
46 



722 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Ghost. This new wonder was a fresh stimulus to Simon's lust of 
power and gain. He offered money to the Apostles, as the price of 
their giving him the same power. Peter's indignant rebuke and ex- 
hortation to repentance so far affected Simon that he asked the Apos- 
tles to pray for him, that he might escape the sentence they had 
denounced ; but he gave no sign of genuine repentance. His later 
history is obscured by superstitious legends, but thus much seems 
clear — that he continued to mix the profession of a spurious Christian- 
ity with the practice of his magical arts, and that he came to a miser- 
able end. The two Apostles did not return to Jerusalem till they had 
preached throughout the country of the Samaritans. 

Meanwhile Philip was directed by an angel to follow the 
road from Jerusalem to Gaza through the southwestern 
desert. There was another traveller before him on the way, an 
Ethiopian eunuch, who held high office at the court of Candace, queen 
of the great Ethiopian monarchy which had long flourished to the 
south of Egypt with its capital at Meroe. Even in that remote 
region, a large body of Jews had been established under the Egyptian 
King Psammetichus, and this Ethiopian minister had become a prose- 
lyte. He had performed the long journey to worship at Jerusalem ; 
and the great events that had occurred there may have influenced the 
religious meditations which occupied him as his chariot bore him 
leisurely toward the frontier. For he was reading aloud Isaiah's 
great prophecy of Christ's sufferings, and wondering what the prophet 
meant. At the impulse of the Spirit, Philip ran forward to overtake 
the chariot, and broke in with a question which led the eunuch to ask 
him to mount the chariot ; and, as they went along, Philip preached 
to him Christ from the text furnished by the prophet. As he spoke, 
the true light shone into the mind of the pious and docile learner; 
and, when a pool or spring of water by the roadside suggested to him 
the question, " What prevents my being baptized *?" — Philip complied 
at once. The chariot is stopped. Both descend from it to the water ; 
and both were returning to it after the act of baptism was performed, 
when the Spirit caught away Philip from the eyes of the eunuch, who 
went on his way rejoicing. How far he was instrumental in spread- 
ing the Gospel among his countrymen we know not ; for our informa- 
tion of the planting of Christianity in Abyssinia and Sennaar (the 
region about Meroe) dates only from the fourth century. But his 
story is most memorable as a leading example of individual conver- 
sion and as a lesson not to limit God's methods of working it. Mean- 
while Philip went on his mission to the cities of the Philistine plain, 




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724 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

from Azotus (Ashdod) where he was again first seen, through all the 
maritime region as far as Caesarea. At that city he seems to have 
fixed his abode ; for we find him there, eighteen or nineteen years 
later, receiving Paul and his companions into his house, on their final 
journey to Jerusalem. He was still remembered as one " of the 
Seven," but was also distinguished by the title of " Evangelist ;" and 
he had four daughters endowed with prophetic gifts. We are not 
without some indication of the date of these transactions. The eunuch 
was of course returning from one of the three great festivals, and 
which that was may perhaps be inferred from the fact that the Book 
of Isaiah furnished the lessons for the Feast of Tabernacles. If the 
force of this argument be admitted, the conversion of the eunuch will 
be placed after the Feast of Tabernacles in a. d. 37 or 38 ; according 
as we assigned the earlier or later date to Stephen's martyrdom. 

The same city of Csesarea, the Roman capital of Judsea, was the 
scene of the third great step in the spread of the Gospel within the 
Holy Land, the conversion of the centurion Cornelius. Besides their 
relative national positions, there was still another difference between 
the two cases : — the eunuch seems to'have been a " proselyte of right- 
eousness," fully received into the Jewish Church by circumcision ; 
but Cornelius and his friends were uncircumcised, and so only "prose- 
lytes of the gate." Though their conversion did not take place till 
after that greater event which raised up the chosen messenger of the 
Gospel to the Gentiles, it is mentioned by anticipation here, in connec- 
tion with that of the outcast Samaritans, and of the more favored 
Ethiopian proselyte. 

We pause, therefore, at the point at which the preaching of the 
Gospel, begun from Jerusalem according to Christ's command, had 
embraced all classes of the Jewish name — the pure Jews and the de- 
spised Samaritans, the representatives of the Dispersion, and the 
circumcised proselyte from the far southern region which Christ him- 
self had called the ends of the earth. Such were the results accom- 
plished about the epoch marked by the death of the Emperor Tiberius 
(a. d. 37), and distinguished also, as we have already seen, by the 
disgrace of Caiaphas and Pilate, the two chief actors in the death 
of Christ. 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 125 




CHAPTER XXXVII. 

CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 

[A. D. 37-40.] 

d||[T is essential that the reader should not fall into the mistake 
,4 of regarding the "Acts" as a biographical history of the 
^ Apostles, and it is equally important to avoid regarding the 
latter part of the book as a biography of St. Paul, whose 
great career must now be related. 
Saul is first introduced to us in connection with the martyrdom 
of Stephen, and the persecution which ensued thereon. When the 
disciples were scattered by this persecution, Saul pursued 
them with a fury which Luke describes by the same image 
that the poets use of the monster Typhoeus, " breathing out threaten- 
ings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord ;" or, to use his 
own words, " Being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them 
even to strange cities." Among these cities was old Damascus, which 
had recently been transferred from Herod Antipas to Aretas, the 
King of Arabia Petrsea, whose daughter Herod had put away, in 
order to marry his own niece and sister-in-law, Herodias. War had 
broken out between the two princes about their boundaries; and the 
Jews, who were very numerous at Damascus, espoused the cause of 
Aretas, and viewed Herod's defeat as a judgment for the death of 
John. It was, therefore, natural that Aretas should befriend the 
Jews, so as to give facilities for carrying out the jurisdiction which 
the great Sanhedrim at Jerusalem claimed over their countrymen in 
foreign cities. At all events, Saul must have relied on being able to 
execute the commission which he sought and obtained from the high- 
priests to the synagogues at Damascus, to bring all the disciples he 
could find there, men or women, bound, to Jerusalem. About the 
same time that Philip was plodding alone on the desert way from 
Jerusalem to Gaza, the fiery young Pharisee was riding with his 
retinue in the opposite direction through the Syrian desert. The 
unexpected crisis which hung over him invites us to cast back a 
glance upon his former life. 

- "I verily am a Jew, born in Tarsus, of Cilicia ( a citizen 

of no mean city), but brought up in this city (Jerusalem) at 




r26 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 727 

the feet of Gamaliel," " circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of 
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to 
the law a Pharisee :" — such are Paul's descriptions of himself, to 
which the traditions of the Fathers scarcely add any trustworthy 
information. 

We see that he belonged to a Jewish family of " the Dispersion," 
but of the purest Hebrew blood, and preserving the record of its 
descent from the tribe which had already given a king to Israel in 
the person of another Saul, for such was the Jewish name that he 
derived from his parents. He was a " freeborn " citizen of Rome, 
inheriting from his father those privileges which he so often claimed 
in a spirit that serves as a pattern of the value that Christians should 
set upon their political rights. It is a common error to suppose that 
Saul's father enjoyed the Roman citizenship simply as an inhabitant 
of Tarsus. It is true that the capital of the province of Cilicia, 
placed on the banks of the Cydnus, in the narrow fertile plain be- 
tween the Mediterranean and the snowy peaks of Taurus, at the 
conflux of the commerce between Asia Minor and the East, well 
deserved the epithet applied to it by its most distinguished son : it 
was " no mean city ;" but yet it neither ranked as a municipium nor 
a. eolonia; and its position as a " free city" (libera civitas) did not 
entitle its sons to the Roman franchise. It is conjectured, therefore, 
that this privilege had been conferred upon Saul's father as the re- 
ward of services rendered during the civil wars; and we have many 
other examples of the enjoyment of the franchise by Jews. 

The traveller observes at the present day the plain of Tarsus dotted 
over with the black tents of goat's-hair, under which the people live 
while gathering in their harvest. Cilicia was famed of old for the 
manufacture of this goat's-hair cloth, which was called Cilicium; and 
Saul was brought up to the occupation of a tent-maker. The excel- 
lent custom of the Jews to teach every youth some trade, whether he 
had to earn his living by it or not, afterward enabled the Apostle — 
when such independence was of vital consequence to his ministerial 
success — to labor with his own hands, and so to make the Gospel 
without charge to the disciples. It by no means follows that the 
family were in a necessitous condition ; and the contrary may be 
inferred from the liberal education which St. Paul received. To that 
acquisition of the Greek language, which the situation and commercial 
activity of Tarsus made almost a matter of course, he added such an 
acquaintance with Hellenic literature, as not only to quote freely from 
Greek poets, but to prove himself familiar with the very spirit of 



728 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Hellenism. These accomplishments, together with the influence 
which the general atmosphere of a highly-cultivated Greek com- 
munity must have had upon his susceptible nature, formed in no 
small degree his peculiar qualifications for the special part to which 
he was called in the diffusion of Christianity, as the "Apostle of the 
Gentiles." 

But, though Hellenistic, his family were not Hellenizing. A 
" Hebrew of the Hebrews," he was early sent to Jerusalem, to be 
" brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the 
most perfect manner of the law of the fathers." Here he added to 
that perfect familiarity with the Septuagint, which as an Hellenist he 
had been taught from his childhood, a complete knowledge of Hebrew 
and of the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as the whole mass of the tradi- 
tional lore of the Pharisaic school. The profound learning which 
lies at the basis of all the reasonings of his Epistles confirms his own 
account of the rapid progress which he made in the Jews' religion 
above many of his contemporaries. But Saul was no mere intellec- 
tual student. The young Pharisee had already acquired among " his 
own people" a reputation for sanctity of life and strict observance of 
all the traditions of the sect, which he more than maintained at 
Jerusalem. He could afterward confidently appeal to the knowledge 
of all the Jews, that " after the most straitest sect of their religion he 
lived a Pharisee;" nay, he could boast with a good conscience, that he 
was blameless as touching the righteousness which is in the law. 
Paul was no converted profligate ; and thus far he is an example of 
that course of divine grace which visits with new light and life the 
cultivated intellect and the well-regulated character. But those 
qualifying words point to the greater virtues which he did not pos- 
sess; and his frequent ironical allusions to "glorying," "boasting," 
and " pleasing men," confess the stigma which Christ had stamped 
upon the Pharisees, who "received honor one of another," and " loved 
the praise of men more than the praise of God." His own sorrowful 
confession marks his highest reputation among the Jews as a state of 
"ignorance and unbelief" — ignorance of the true meaning of the 
Scriptures in which he was so proficient, and unbelief in their 
spiritual sense. But his darkness was not that of the cold night of 
scepticism. The same enthusiastic temperament which afterward 
bore him on through the many " perils" of his apostolic course, broke 
out in youth as a fierce zeal for the traditions of the fathers. 

When Paul afterward came forward as the great opponent of the 
false interpretation of the law, it was at least impossible to charge 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 129 

him with ignorance or indifference upon the subject. He had no 
doubt completed his course of study at the feet of Gamaliel, and per- 
haps returned to Jerusalem after an absence of some time at Tarsus, 
when the first preaching of the Apostles, and the disputations of the 
deacons presented a special object of attack. And here it is most in- 
teresting to contrast the solitary appearance of Gamaliel in the Acts 
with the course chosen by St. Paul ; the master's counsels of tolera- 
tion with the persecuting zeal so soon displayed by the pupil. There 
is room for the supposition that the advice which Gamaliel gave, as 
an opponent of the Sadducees, concerning the treatment of believers 
in a resurrection, may have been greatly modified when he found the 
Christians arguing against the Pharisaic traditions. But, be this as 
it may, the teaching of the Pharisaic doctor, which regarded the stu- 
dents of the law as the " holy people," and declared that " this people 
who knoweth not the law are cursed," did but produce its natural 
fruit in the ardent spirit of Saul, with his youthful impatience of all 
compromise. How far his zeal was inflamed by that bitterest ele- 
ment, which is supplied by conscious doubts and struggles, is a ques- 
tion as difficult as it is interesting. From Nicodemus to Gamaliel, 
we may trace among the Pharisees the working of that conviction of 
the truth of Christ's Messiahship, which was the appropriate fruit of 
their learning and their doctrines. Jesus constantly deals with them 
as being wilfully blind ; and St. Paul's celebrated confession of his 
own ignorance and unbelief is at least capable of the like interpreta- 
tion. The very word unbelief, in such a connection, implies the con- 
sideration of the great question which Gamaliel had propounded in 
the Sanhedrim, and which could hardly have escaped discussion in his 
school. We cannot doubt, therefore, that it was as the result of 
doubtful struggles, if not of suppressed conviction, that Saul came to 
" think verily with himself that he ought to do many things against 
the name of Jesus of Nazareth." Such a state of mind will account 
for the fury which he shared with the other Hellenists who were re- 
futed by Stephen ; and the deep sense of it breathes through his 
remorseful allusions to that darkest day of his whole career. Let 
those who maintain that zeal is a virtue, even in a bad cause, ponder 
Paul's confession that he was the chief of sinners because he was " a 
blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious," and therefore the most 
signal example of God's long-suffering ; that he was " the least of the 
Apostles, and not worthy to be called an Apostle, because he perse- 
cuted the Church of God." 

In the martyrdom of Stephen we must not think of Saul as a mere 



730 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

bv-stander. The mention of " them of Cilicia " seems to assign him a 
place among the disputants against Stephen ; but his part in the mur- 
der, only second to that of the witnesses whose clothes he took charge 
of, is marked by the emphatic statement ''Saul was consenting to his 
death. " The angelic glory that shone from Stephen's face, and the 
divine truth of his words, failing to subdue the spirit of religious ha- 
tred now burning in Saul's breast, must have embittered and aggra- 
vated its rage. He became not simply the chief instrument, but the 
prime mover, in the great persecution for which that deed gave the 
signal; and it was by his activity that the Christians were forced to 
flee from Jerusalem. "As for Saul, he made havoc of the Church, 
entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed 
them to prison." His own confession amplifies the historian's ac- 
count, and tells us of the eager malice with which, probably as a 
member of the Sanhedrim, he voted for their death, or helped to in- 
flict minor punishments, such as scourging in the synagogue, and 
tried, greatest triumph of all to the persecutor's spite, to compel them 
to blaspheme the name of Christ. The Pharisees and Sadducees now 
evidently sank their difference in common hatred against the Chris- 
tians ; and the absence of a Roman procurator enabled them to usurp 
the power of life and death. Saul might almost have been for the 
time the governor of Jerusalem. The chief priests might have been 
content with the apparent expulsion of the Christians from Jerusa- 
lem; but not so Saul, — "Being exceedingly mad against them, I per- 
secuted them even unto foreign cities." It was by his own seeking 
that he obtained the letters of the high-priest to the synagogues of 
Damascus, to enable him to seize and bring bound to Jerusalem any 
" of the way," whether men or women. 

But the Divine Ruler had prescribed a very different issue, and 
Saul was arrested on his journey by a miracle which converted the 
persecutor of his Jewish brethren into the Apostle of the Gentiles. 
This event is related in detail three times in the Acts, first by the 
historian in his own person, then in the two addresses made by St. 
Paul at Jerusalem and before Agrippa. These three narratives are 
not repetitions of one another : there are differences between them 
which some critics choose to consider irreconcilable. Considering 
that the same author is responsible for all the accounts, it seems 
pretty clear that the author himself could not have been conscious of 
any contradictions in the narratives. He can scarcely have had any 
motive for placing side by side inconsistent reports of St. Paul's con- 
version ; and that he should have admitted inconsistencies on such a 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 131 

matter through mere carelessness, is hardly credible. Strange that 
those who are so proud of detecting " obvious discrepancies/' cannot 
see that they are too obvious to have escaped the notice of the writer, 
whose leaving them as they stand is a decisive proof of honesty ! In 
the one place he gives in his own language a simple account of the 
most essential features of the transaction, viewed merely as an histori- 
cal event : — the sudden light from heaven ; the voice of Jesus speak- 
ing with authority to his persecutor; Saul struck to the ground, 
blinded, overcome ; the three days' suspense ; the coming of Ananias 
as a messenger of the Lord ; and Saul's baptism. In the other two 
passages, he reports speeches which St. Paul made before different 
auditors, bringing forward in each case those points which were best 
fitted to convince the hearers ; points relating chiefly to his own con- 
sciousness, but in no one respect inconsistent with those recorded 
in the simpler narrative. It is to be especially observed that St. 
Luke, in telling the plain story of Paul's conversion, refers to what 
the by-standers witnessed as a sort of supplement ; while St. Paul 
himself, in using the event as an evidence of his divine mission, lays 
more stress on their experience, and weaves it step by step into his 
account. As a critical example of unity in diversity, and for its im- 
portance as one of the chief evidences of the truth of Christianity, each 
step of the narrative must be compared in the three accounts. 

I. Saul and his company had nearly completed the jour- 
ney across the vast level east of the Lake of Tiberias — " the 
Desert of Damascus " — bounded only by the chain of Lebanon faintly 
seen on the far horizon: — "the earth in its length and breadth, and 
all the deep universe of sky, is steeped in light and heat;" and the 
towers of the most ancient city in the world are now in full sight, 
when the brightness of the noonday sun is suddenly swallowed up in 
a greater light from heaven, which seems to envelop the little band. 
The fancy that this might have been a subjective vision to the inter- 
nal sense of Saul alone is precluded by his own statement in the third 
of the accounts — " shining round about me, and them that journeyed 
with me." The light then was a real effulgence visible to all, and all 
were stricken to the earth by its sudden overpowering splendor. But 
Saul, though alone struck blind by the light, alone beheld the vision 
of the Son of God amid the light, as he appeared to the Three Chil- 
dren in the fiery furnace, and to Stephen in the article of death, and 
afterward to John in Patmos — visible only to his spiritual sense. This 
view, though not undisputed, is amply justified, first by the contrast 
in the narrative itself — for the attendants, who retained their natural 



" 3 ■") 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




CONVERSION OF SAUL. 



vision, saw no man — and next by the express declarations of Ananias, 
"The Lord Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way" — "The God 
of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest . . . see that Just 
One" — and by those by Paul himself — "Have not I seen Jesus Christ 
our Lord?" — " Last of all he icas seen of me also, as of one born out 
of due time." The last passage seems decisive, concluding as it does 
the list of the visible appearances of Christ to his Apostles after his 
resurrection, by this to the last-chosen of their number. 

II. The light was attended by the sound so familiar to Jewish be- 
lief as the " Bath-Col," or voice from heaven, audible to the attendants 
probably much in the same way as to the Jews on the occasion when 
some said it thundered. But what they heard as a mere sound was 
to Saul the distinct voice of him who appeared to him in the light, a 
remonstrance which at once revealed himself and claimed the obedi- 
ence of one well known to him — " Saul ! Saul ! why persecutest thou 
me?" The fuller narrative in St. Paul's defence before Agrippa adds 
that striking figure, which is not onlv a warning: of the follv of re- 
sistance, but implies that conscious effort against conviction of which 
we have before spoken — " It is hard for thee to kick against the goad." 
Amid the vague astonishment of the answer, we trace the acknow- 
ledgment of the appeal from heaven, "Who art thou, Lord?" — 
while the reply fully reveals him whom Saul was henceforth to serve 
with as much zeal as that with which he now opposed him : " I am 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 733 

Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest." To the trembling and 
astonishment caused by his being " apprehended " — to use his own 
figure — in the very act described by his earthly master as " fighting 
against God," was at once added that entire change of heart and spirit 
and purpose toward Christ, which has caused the transaction to be 
called ever since, " the Conversion of St. Paul." He had much yet to 
learn ; but this great change was marked, and the key-note of his 
future life was struck by the humble inquiry, " Lord ! what wilt thou 
have me to do ? " The answer was left to be given by the appointed 
human agency, after an interval of preparation ; and the supernatural 
scene was closed by the command to Saul to rise up, and go into Da- 
mascus to wait for his commission. And here we have the most in- 
teresting example of that unity in diversity which marks the three 
accounts. The narrative of St. Luke of course mentions the return to 
Damascus, and so forth, in the historic order ; and in St. Paul's de- 
fence to the Jews, importance is naturally assigned to the miraculous 
and prophetic ministry of Ananias, while the commission to the Gen- 
tiles — so sure to rouse their indignation — was as naturally deferred to 
the last. But, in addressing Agrippa, he passes over the transactions 
at Damascus, in which the king would take no interest, to come at 
once to the essential matter of his commission, by which he hoped to 
persuade him to become a Christian. In so doing he ascribes to 
Jesus, not only the message afterward brought to him by Ananias, 
but the revelation made to him at a later period in the Temple, in 
words which were those of Christ himself. With perfect truthfulness 
to the spirit of the transaction, he condenses into one point of view 
revelations which really formed but one. What Saul actually heard 
from Jesus, on the way as he journeyed, was afterward interpreted 
into that definite form in which he repeated it to Agrippa. 

In all that passed, from the moment when all fell to the earth at 
the outburst of the light from heaven till Saul again rose to his feet, 
his companions had no other part than that of silent wonder. " They 
stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." As they could 
not distinguish the articulate voice that conversed with Paul, so neither 
did they hear articulate words proceeding from his lips. It seems 
therefore that he heard and spoke by means of an inward spiritual 
sense. 

III. Saul rose from the ground, and opened his eyes after his 
trance, only to find that " he could not see for the glory of that light." 
The guidance by which his comrades led him into Damascus was the 
type of his new spiritual state, " taken by the hand " by his Lord. In 



734 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the street called Straight, he became the guest of Judas, perhaps one 
of the chief of the disciples whom he came to persecute. Of the com- 
munion with his new-found Master during his three days of darkness 
and fasting, we have only the simple record, " Behold he prayeth !" — 
which shows him in the fit attitude for receiving the mission of An- 
anias, a vision of whose coming had consoled his waiting. The mes- 
senger sent to him was a convert of his own class, " a devout man 
according to the law/' and one so familiar with all the evil that Paul 
had done, as to be at first incredulous of his conversion. He salutes 
Saul as a brother, and, in the name of that same Lord Jesus who had 
appeared to him by the way, bids him receive his sight. The scales, 
which seemed at once to fall from his eyes, were those which had 
blinded his spiritual even more than his natural vision ; and his own 
narrative adds the full account of the revelation that burst upon him : 
— " The same hour I looked up upon him, and he said, The Lord 
God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his 
will, and see the Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. 
For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen 
and heard." Every word in this address strikes some chord which 
we hear sounded again and again in St. Paul's Epistles. The new 
convert is not — as is commonly said — converted from Judaism to 
Christianity : the God of the Jewish fathers chooses him. He is chosen 
to know GocVs will. That will is manifested in the Righteous One. 
Him Saul sees and hears, in order that he may be a witness of him to 
all men. The eternal will of the God of Abraham ; that will revealed 
in a Righteous Son of God ; the testimony concerning him, a Gospel 
to mankind : — these are the essentially Pauline principles which are 
declared in all the teaching of the Apostle, and illustrated in all his 
actions. The mission of Ananias was completed by the baptism of 
Saul ; and not till he had washed away his sins, calling on the name 
of the Lord, did he break his three days' fast, and was strengthened. 

That the bigoted persecutor, at the climax of honor with his own 
nation, and in the full career of success, should have suddenly cast 
in his lot with the Christians, and entered on the new course of self- 
sacrificing labor and suffering which made up the rest of his life, has 
often been esteemed of itself a complete evidence of the truth of Chris- 
tianity. The argument, which is fully set forth in Lord Lyttelton's 
Letter on the Conversion of St. Paul, is thus summed up by Paley : — 
" Here then we have a man of liberal attainments, and in other points 
of sound judgment, who addicted his life to the service of the Gospel. 
We see him, in the prosecution of his purpose, travelling from country 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 



T3 



oO 




DAMASCUS. 



to country, enduring every extremity of danger, assaulted by the popu- 
lace, punished by the magistrates, scourged, beat, stoned, left for dead ; 
expecting, wherever lie came, a renewal of the same treatment and the 
same dangers ; yet, when driven from one city, preaching in the next ; 
spending his whole time in the employment, sacrificing to it his pleas- 
ures, his ease, his safety ; persisting in this course to old age, unaltered 
by the experience of perverseness, ingratitude, prejudice, desertion; 
unsubdued by anxiety, want, labor, persecutions ; unwearied by long 
confinement, undismayed by the prospect of death. Such was Paul. 
We have his letters in our hands ; we have also a history purporting 
to be written by one of his fellow-travellers, and appearing, by a com- 
parison with these letters, certainly to have been written by some per- 
son well acquainted with the transactions of his life. From the letters, 
as well as from the history, we gather not only the account which we 
have stated of him, but that he was one out of many who acted and 
suffered in the same manner ; and that of those who did so, several 
had been the companions of Christ's ministry, the ocular witnesses, or 
pretending to be such, of his miracles and of his resurrection. We 
moreover find this same person referring in his letters to his super- 
natural conversion, the particulars and accompanying circumstances 



736 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



of which are related in the history ; and which accompanying circum- 
stances, if all or any of them be true, render it impossible to have been 
a delusion. We also find him positively, and in appropriate terms, 
asserting that he himself worked miracles, strictly and properly so 
called, in support of the mission which he executed; the history, 
meanwhile, recording various passages of his ministry which come up 
to the extent of his assertion. The question is, whether falsehood was 
ever attested by evidence like this. Falsehoods, we know, have found 
their way into reports, into tradition, into books ; but is an example 
to be met with of a man voluntarily undertaking a life of want and 
pain, of incessant fatigue, of continual peril; submitting to the loss 
of his home and country, to stripes and stoning, to tedious imprison- 
ment, and the constant expectation of a violent death, for the sake of 
carrying about a story of what was false, and what, if false, he must 
have known to be so ? " 

The divine message conveyed by Ananias to the new convert clear- 
ly involved a designation to the Apostleship, as the sight of Jesus by 
the way and the words addressed to Saul proved his choice to the 
office and supplied its chief external qualification. The public exer- 
cise of his office began immediately after his baptism. Received into 
full fellowship with the Christians of Damascus, he preached Christ in 
the synagogues, that he is the Son of God ; and the more they wondered 
at the great persecutor's conversion, as contrasted with the fell pur- 
pose which brought him to the city, the more he increased in strength, 
" and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that 
this is very Christ." The narrative of St. Luke does not stay to 
relate how the news was received at Jerusalem ; but the disappointed 
rage of Saul's former friends is proved in his subsequent history. 
From himself too we learn that he made the choice deliberately, not 
to go first to Jerusalem and seek confirmation or advice from those 
who were Apostles before him; but, instead of thus "conferring with 
flesh and blood," he acted on the conviction that " it had pleased God, 
who separated him from his mother's womb, and called him by his 
grace, to reveal his Son in him, that he might preach him among 
the heathen." 

Of the time thus spent, before Saul was driven from Da- 
mascus, we learn further particulars from himself. He 
defines the " many days " of Luke as three years ; which may mean 
either three full years, or one year with parts of two others. Near the 
beginning (as it would seem) of this period, he retired into Arabia ; 
we are not told to what district, or for what purpose — perhaps for 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 737 

seclusion, meditation and prayer, in opposition to u conferring with 
flesh and blood " — and then he returned to Damascus. Here a con- 
spiracy was formed against him by the Jews, who lay in wait to kill 
him, while the ethnarch under Aretas, the Arabian king, kept watch 
with the garrison to prevent his escape. But the Eastern fashion of 
building houses upon walls enabled Paul to escape by the same device 
used by Rahab at Jericho. Being let down through a window by 
the wall in a basket, he took his course to Jerusalem. The motive 
of this visit, as he himself tells us, was to form Peter's acquaintance, 
or " to enquire of Peter," whom in the time of persecution he had 
doubtless learned to regard as the chief of the Apostles. He probably 
thought that the time was come for that concert with the former 
Apostles, which he had purposely abstained from seeking as a prelimi- 
nary qualification for his own ministry. And even now he takes 
pains to have it understood that he accepted no formal confirmation 
of his call from the " apostolic college." He mentions the journey as 
an illustration of his argument that he did not receive the Gospel 
which he preached (that is, the commission to preach it) from man ; 
and adds the solemn asseveration — " before God, I lie not " — to the 
statement, " Other of the Apostles saw I none save James the Lord's 
brother." The great body of the disciples viewed the re-appearance 
of their former persecutor with distrust, and refused to believe that 
he was a disciple, till Barnabas — who, as a Cypriot, seems to have 
had relations with the Hellenist Jews of Tarsus — brought Saul to the 
Apostles, and told them how he, had seen the Lord in the way, and 
how boldly he had preached Christ at Damascus. With equal bold- 
ness Saul now began to dispute with the Hellensits ; and he was only 
saved from Stephen's fate through being hastily escorted by the 
brethren to Csesarea, whence he sailed for Tarsus. \ 

He had spent only fifteen days at Jerusalem, as the guest 
of Peter ; and it becomes a question of deep interest, whether 
this intercourse of theirs took place before or after the time when 
Peter had opened the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles by the con- 
version of Cornelius ; and how far they aided in opening one another's 
eyes to the mystery of the conversion of the whole world. For we 
are so accustomed to think of Paul as the Apostle of the Gentiles, as 
to forget that his Jewish prejudices were naturally as strong as those 
of Peter. Saul had indeed already been designated, in the revelation 
to Ananias, as "a chosen vessel unto God, to bear his name before the 
Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel ;" but we do not know 
that Ananias had given him the commission more distinctly than in 
47 



•738 



filSTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



the general pharase " to all men," and Saul had as yet preached only 
in the Jewish synagogues at Damascus. The visit to Jerusalem was 
the season appointed for him to receive his full commission to the 
Gentiles, the particulars of which he relates in his defence before the 
Jews. As he was praying in the Temple, he fell into a trance, and 
for the second time beheld a vision of the Lord, who bade him to 
make haste and depart from Jerusalem, " for they will not receive 
thy testimony concerning me." His argument in reply, from their 
former knowledge of him as a persecutor, was answered by the repe- 
tition of the command, " Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto 
the Gentiles." The revelation is evidently made to Saul alone, and 
that as a novelty and mystery inconsistent with the supposition that 
the Church at Jerusalem had already acknowledged the conversion of 
Cornelius and his Gentile friends. It seems to include not only a 
designation to his particular department of apostolic w r ork — so offen- 
sive to the Jews — but also a distinct recognition of that independence 
of his apostolic calling which might have provoked jealousy even 
among his Christian brethren. And, just as the bare recital of those 
words roused Saul's infuriated audience to cry, "Away with such a 
fellow from earth ! " so would the consciousness of such a mission 
probably hurry him away out of the reach both of Jews and Judaizing 
Christians, without his venturing to communicate it even to Peter. 
The view most consistent, both with the sequence of the narrative and 
with the order in which the Gospel message was developed, seems to 
be that each Apostle was led on independently, and without concert, 
to his separate mission to the Gentiles ; the one to open to them the 
door of the kingdom of heaven, the other to go abroad and compel 
them to come in. Nor had the Christians of Judaea any but the 
slightest knowledge of Saul till, after his flight from Jerusalem, he 
" came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia ; and they heard only, that 
he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which 
once he destroyed; and they glorified God in him." 

The narrative in the Acts distinctly places after this visit to Jeru- 
salem that season of outward quiet which forms a grateful interval in 
the history of the early Church : — " Then had the churches rest 
throughout all Judaea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified, 
and, walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy 
Ghost, were multiplied." To appreciate this statement fully, we 
must here endeavor to supply that want of a distinct chronology 
which is so much felt in the Acts of the Apostles. The amount of 
industry and learning, recently brought to the discussion by Dr. 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 139 

Howson and Mr. Lewin, has reduced the controversy within very 
narrow limits ; and the comparative table at the close of this chapter 
will at once show the points of difference between these leading 
authorities, and also how satisfactory is their general agreement, 
though arrived at by different trains of argument, concerning the 
leading epochs of Paul's life. 

It will be observed that the main points of difference — exclusive 
of the date of Paul's birth, and the period after his first imprison- 
ment at Rome, which are confessedly very uncertain — are the fol- 
lowing : 

(1.) The First Missionary Journey is placed three years earlier, 
and the Visit to Jerusalem to the Council two years earlier by Mr. 
Lewin than by Dr. Howson. 

(2.) This discrepancy is balanced by the greater extent which Mr. 
Lewin gives to the Second Circuit. 

(3.) The fourth visit to Jerusalem is placed by Mr. Lewin at the 
Feast of Tabernacles, A. D. 53, by Dr. Howson at Pentecost, A. d. 54. 

(4.) The difference respecting the visit of Gal. ii. rests on a 
different computation of the 3 years and 14 years of Gal. i. 18, and 
Gal. ii. 1. 

There are but two events in the life of Paul which give us sure 
marks of time. The one is his journey from Antioch to Jerusalem 
with Barnabas, on the occasion of the great famine under Claudius, 
about the time of the death of Herod Agrippa I. — an event which 
we can fix with certainty to A. D. 44 ; and the visit itself could not 
be later than A. D. 45. The other date is that of the judgment of 
St. Paul by Festus ; who can be proved, almost with certainty, to 
have succeeded Felix as procurator of Judaea in A. D. 60 — in the 
autumn of which year, therefore, Paul was sent as a prisoner from 
Csesarea to Rome. From the latter date we can safely reckon back, 
through his two years' imprisonment at Caesarea to the Pentecost of 
A. D. 58, as the date of his last arrival at Jerusalem. 

On his way thither, he had sailed from Philippi to Troas after the 
Passover, after residing at Corinth for three months, that is, in the 
winter and early spring of A. D. 57 to 58. Thence we trace him back 
through Macedonia to Ephesus ; a leisurely journey, for, as he went 
over those parts, he gave them much exhortation. It was, therefore, 
before the middle of A. d. 57 that he was driven by the great tumult 
from Ephesus, after he had labored in the city for three years ; and 
this is confirmed by the known date of the Artemisia, the festival at 
which the riot occurred, which was in May. Again we meet the 



T40 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

difficulty as to the mode of reckoning ; but, as Paul had gone over 
the whole country of Phrygia and Galatia, strengthening all the 
disciples, before he came to Ephesus, we can hardly date the begin- 
ning of this his Third Missionary Journey later than the autumn of 
a. d. 54. Mr. Lewin places it at the beginning of the year. 

Here again we haVe an element of uncertainty in the " some time" 
which he had previously spent at Antioch after the conclusion of his 
second missionary journey. But the time of the year when he reached 
Antioch is marked approximately by the hasty visit which he first 
paid to Jerusalem at the " Feast." It is usually assumed that this 
Feast, which Paul was so anxious to keep at Jerusalem, was the 
Pentecost, in which case the "some days" spent at Antioch after it 
would bring us back to the Pentecost, A. D. 54 ; for the abrupt transi- 
tion in St. Luke's narrative, and the incessant activity of St. Paul's 
labors among the Gentiles, now stimulated by the desire to make his 
collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem, alike forbid us to suppose 
that the interval was long. But Mr. Lewin prefers a still earlier 
date, and regards " the Feast" as the Feast of Tabernacles of A. D. 53 
(September 16th), supposing that the Apostle wintered at Antioch, 
and commenced his Third Circuit at the very beginning of A. D. 54. 
Thus the two computations agree within six months as to the conclu- 
sion of Paul's Second and greatest Missionary Journey, of which the 
last year and a half was spent at Corinth, bringing us back to A. D. 
52, and leaving us to account for the wide range of travel, with all 
its important incidents, from Antioch through Cilicia, Lycaonia, 
Galatia, Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Bercea, and Athens — quite 
enough to fill up not only the other part of A. d. 52, and the whole 
of A. D. 51, as Dr. Howson supposes, but to bring us back to the 
earlier date of Mr. Lewin (a. d. 49). For the date of St. Paul's 
eighteen months' residence at Corinth, during this circuit, we have 
independent evidence in the edict of Claudius banishing the Jews 
from Pome, whereby Aquila and Priscilla were driven to Corinth, 
and in the time of Gallio's proconsulship of Achaia. The reader is 
referred to Mr. Lewin's Fasti Sacri for the argument which deduces 
from these data the result, that Paul arrived at Corinth about Febru- 
ary a. D. 52, and left that city about August A. D. 53, just in time to 
reach Jerusalem by the Feast of Tabernacles. 

Before this second journey we have another interval of " some 
days "spent by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, after their return 
from their important visit to Jerusalem to consult the Apostles and 
elders concerning the liberties of the Gentile converts. The foregoing 



CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. Ul 

calculations lead us to place the date of this epoch, alike in the Apos- 
tle's history and in that of the whole Church — the so-called Council 
of Jerusalem — either in A. D. 50, or A. D. 48. 

At this point we encounter one of the greatest difficulties. Dr. 
Howson finds in the date of A. D. 50 another, starting-point, from 
which to reckon back to the epoch of St. Paul's conversion. For of 
the five visits which are distinctly mentioned in the Acts as " having 
been paid by St. Paul to Jerusalem," this, he contends, is the only 
one that can answer to that mentioned in Gal. ii. 1, as having 
occurred "fourteen years after" the events recorded in Gal. i. The 
reckoning may be made either from Paul's conversion, or from his 
ensuing (first) visit to Jerusalem ; and, on the other hand, the four- 
teen years, on the Jewish computation, may have been little more 
than twelve. Taking the average between these two doubts, we may 
reckon back the fourteen years from A. D. 50 to A. D. 36 or 37, and 
take this as the most probable epoch of St. Paul's conversion. It is 
most interesting to observe how Mr. Lewin arrives at almost the 
same result from a very different point of departure. He maintains, 
for reasons which will be better understood at the proper place in the 
narrative, but the conclusiveness of which is very doubtful, that the 
visit of Galatians ii. refers to Paul's arrival at Jerusalem at the close 
of his Second Circuit, which he places at the Feast of Tabernacles, 
A. D. 53. He contends further that the a 3 years" of Gal. i. 18, 
and the "14 years" of Gal. ii. 1, are to be computed more definitely 
than is commonly supposed ; for that, while the phrase used in the 
former case (/«*a ltq tpia) may mean the third year current, the differ- 
ent form of expression in the latter (8ia Ssxattaodpuv etuv) signifies an 
interval of fourteen years complete; and that this fourteen years must 
be computed, not from Paul's conversion, but from the previous visit 
mentioned in Galatians i. 18. Upon these data, reckoning back 14 
years complete from the Feast of Tabernacles of A. D. 53, we arrive 
at the Feast of Tabernacles of A. D. 39, for Paul's first visit to Jeru- 
salem, to see Peter. Thence reckoning back to the third year current, 
we obtain some date in the interval between the Feast of Tabernacles, 
a. d. 36, and the Feast of Tabernacles, A. d. 37, as the epoch of St. 
Paul's conversion. 

But more than this : it seems manifest that the conversion must be 
placed not long after the martyrdom of Stephen, and yet at a suffi- 
cient interval to leave time for the intervening persecution. Now, 
we have been led by independent reasoning to fix the martyrdom of 
Stephen either at the Feast of Tabernacles, A. P. 36, or at the Pass- 



U2 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



over or Pentecost of A. D. 37, which would lead us to the summer of 
A. D. 37 for the conversion. Finally we have the allusion to Saul as 
" a young man " (vsaviaj) at the death of Stephen, which must be com- 
pared with his description of himself, " Paul the Elder/' at the time 
when he wrote to Philemon from his prison at Rome, A. D. 62. Now 
we happen to have a distinct definition by Philo, the contemporary 
of St. Paul, of the limits of age which the Jews denoted by these 
phrases ; according to which Paul might be about 28 in A. D. 37, and 
about 53 in A. d. 62, so that his birth may be placed approximately 
in A. d. 9. We are aided in fixing the lower limit by the fact that 
Aretas was not in possession of Damascus till A. d. 37. 

The conclusion that Paul's conversion took place about the begin- 
ning, and his flight from Jerusalem about the middle of Caligula's 
reign of four years (a. d. 37-41), is in perfect agreement with that 
interval of rest to all the churches, which is mentioned as immediately 
succeeding his departure from Jerusalem to Tarsus. That interval of 
rest may be ascribed not only to the cessation of Saul's persecution, 
but to the relations of Judaea to the empire under Caligula. We shall 
soon have occasion to tell how that Caesar's insane attempt to set up 
his own statue in the sanctuary drove the Jews to the verge of a 
rebellion, which was only averted by his death ; and we can well 
believe that the agitation of the whole people at the impending danger 
would divert their attention from the Christians. Thus the commo- 
tions which have shaken the world and divided the Church's enemies 
against themselves, have often given her a shelter and a breathing- 
space, just as she seemed about to succumb to persecution. 



COXYBEARE AND 

Howsox. 


Lewin. 


Table of St. Paul's Life. 


A. D. 


A. D. 




About 5 or 6 


About 11 


Birth of Saul at Tarsus. 


36 


36 or 37 


Martyrdom of St, Stephen. 


37 


37 


Conversion of St. Paul. 


39 


39 
(Feast of Tabernacles. ) 


His first visit to Jerusalem. 


39-40 


39-40 


Rest of the Jewish Churches. 


40 


40 


Conversion of Cornelius. 


44 


43 


Barnabas fetches Saul from Tarsus to 
Antioch. 


44 


44 


Famine ; and death of Herod Asrippa I. 


44 or 45 


44 


Barnabas and Saul «r> to Jerusalem with 




(Before the Passover.) 


the collection. (Paul's second visit.) 


48-49 


45-46 


Paul's First Missionary Journey. 


50 


48 


Paul and Barnabas go up to the Coun- 
cil at Jerusalem. 
Paul's third visit.* 



* Dr. Howson identifies this visit with that of Galatians ii., and places the collision with Peter at An- 
tioch after it. 



THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. U3 
TABLE. — Continued. 



conybeare and 
Howson. 


Lewin. 


Table of St. Paul's Life. 


A. D. 


A. D. 




51 


49 


Paul's Second Missionary Journey. 


52 


52 


Paul arrives at Corinth, where he stays 




(February.) 


18 months. 


54 


53 


Paul arrives at Jerusalem. 


{Pentecost. ) 


{Tabernacles.) 


His fourth visit.* 

Winters at Antioch (Lewin). 


54 


54 


Paul's Third Missionary Journey. 


(Latter half. ) 


(Beginning.) 




55 


54 


He reaches Ephesus, where he stays 3 




(May.) 


full years (Lewin). 


55-57 


54-57 




57 


57 
(About Pentecost.) 


Leaves Ephesus for Macedonia. 


57-58 


57-58 


Winters at Corinth (3 months). 


58 


58 
(March 27.) 


Reaches Philippi at the Passover. 


58 


58 


Reaches Jerusalem at Pentecost. 




(May 17.) 


Paul's fifth visii } and arrest in the Tem- 
ple. 
Imprisonment at Caesarea. 


58-60 


58-60 


60 


60 
(About Midsummer. ) 


Festus succeeds Felix. 


60 


60 
(End of August.) 


Paul sails for Rome. 




About Nov. 1 


His shipwreck at Malta. 


61 


61 

(Beginning of March.) 


Paul reaches Rome. 




61-63 


His first imprisonment (2 years). 


63 


63 


On his release Paul 




(Spring.) 


goes to Macedo- 


sails for Jerusalem, 






nia and Asia 


and visits Antioch, 






Minor (C.&H.) 


Colossae and Ephe- 

en o 


64-66 


64 


(Lewin.) Paul, a 


fter visiting Crete, 


(In Spain ?) 




leaves Ephesus for Macedonia. 


67-68 


64-65 


Winters at Nicopolis. 




65 


(Lewin.) Visits Dalmatia, and returns 
through Macedonia and Troas to 
Ephesus, where he is arrested and 
sent to Rome. 


68 


66 


Martyrdom of St. Paul at Rome. 


(May or June.) 


(June 29.) 





* Mr. Lewin identifies this visit with that of Galatians ii., and places the collision with Peter at Antioch 
after it. 



744 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 




CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE GENTILES RECEIVED INTO THE CnURCH — FROM AFTER THE CONVERSION OF 
ST. PAUL TO THE DECREE OF THE FIRST COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM, INCLUDING 
THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF PAUL AND BARNABAS. 

[a. r>. 4U — a. d. 48 or 50.] 

)@j|T was in the interval of rest described in the preceding chapter, 
which we may place in the latter part of Caligula's reign, that 
Peter made what appears to have been an Apostolical visita- 
tion of all the churches already established. Arriving at 
Lydda, in the great maritime plain of Sharon, he performed a 
miracle of healing on a certain JEneas, who had been bedridden with 
palsy for eight years. Imitating the manner of his Master in the 
command, "Arise, and make thy bed," he was careful to 
show the source of the power which accompauied his words 
by saying, " Jesus Christ maketh thee whole." The miracle was fol- 
lowed by the general conversion of the inhabitants of the city of 
Lydda and the plain of Sharon. 

Nine miles from Lydda, and on the sea-shore, stands Joppa, the 
ancient port of Solomon. Here dwelt a disciple, whose name — 
Tabitha in Aramaic, in Greek Dorcas, that is, gazelle — generally 
associated in the East with the perfection of female beauty — has be- 
come the type of the greater loveliness of that charity with which she 
clothed the poor by the labor of her own hands. Her death was felt 
so grievous a loss by the brethren at Joppa, that they sent messengers 
to Lydda, praying for a visit from St. Peter. His arrival was fol- 
lowed by the crowning miracle which proved that the spiritual gifts 
conferred by Christ upon his Apostles did not stop short of power 
over life and death. And in this case also, Peter proceeded after the 
example given by our Saviour in raising the daughter of Jairus. 
Putting forth from the chamber, where the corpse was already laid 
out for burial, the mourners whose lamentations and display of the 
garments she had made proved at once the reality of her death and 
the sense of their loss, Peter knelt down and prayed. Then, turning 
to the body, he said, " Tabitha, arise !" "And she opened her eyes : 
and when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand, and 
lifted her up, and when he had called the saints and widows, he pre- 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED 



145 




HOUSE WITH A PARAPET. 



sented her alive." The news spread through Joppa ; many believed 
on the Lord ; and Peter took up his abode for a long time among the 
converts, in the house of his namesake, Simon, a tanner, on the sea- 
shore. 

Here it was the Apostle's custom to ascend at noon to the house- 
top, which looked over the western waters, for solitary prayer ; uncon- 
sciously blending his devotions with those which a Roman soldier at 
Csesarea was continually offering, that new light might be added to 
what he had learned as a " proselyte of the gate." This soldier was 
Gbrnelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, "a just man, and one 
that feared God, with all his house, and of good report among all the 
Jewish nation, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to Qod 
alway." To this man's devotion, and faithfulness to the light he had, 
was vouchsafed a vision of an angel, bidding him to send to Joppa for 
Simon Peter, who should tell him what he ought to do. It was no 
phantasm of a nocturnal dream, but an open vision, manifest to his 
waking sense, at three o'clock in the afternoon, as he was praying in 
his house at the hour of the evening sacrifice. 



U6 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

His messengers were already approaching Joppa on the following 
day, when Peter also, in his midday retirement upon the house-top, 
was visited in a trance by a vision which taught him, through em- 
blems specially adapted to his prejudices as a Jew, the hardest lesson 
for a Jew to learn, " that he should not call any man common or un- 
clean," and which was interpreted by the words, thrice repeated from 
heaven — " What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common ! " 
The lesson was at once enforced by the arrival of the messengers of 
Cornelius and the command of the Spirit to go with them ; and the 
journey of a day and a half from Joppa to Csesarea gave Peter time 
to reflect upon this meaning. So, when he found Cornelius waiting 
with his kinsmen and near friends, to hear the divine message from 
his mouth, he was prepared to declare the great principle of the new 
dispensation : — " Of a truth t perceive that God is no respecter of per- 
sons ; but in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteous- 
ness is accepted with him." Then to these Gextiles he preached 
the Gospel of the life and death of Christ, his resurrection and coming 
again to judgment, and the remission of sins through his name to all 
who believe in him. While Peter was in the act of speaking, the be- 
lieving reception of his words by Cornelius and his friends was 
divinely ratified by the immediate effusion of the Holy Spirit, repeat- 
ing for these representatives of the Gentiles, the gift bestowed on the 
Jews at Pentecost, and conferring the power of speaking with tongues. 
The sign was needed to remove the doubts, if not of the Apostle him- 
self, of the Judaizing Christians w^ho accompanied him ; for the 
existence of that party is already indicated in the narrative by the 
phrase, " they of the circumcision." While they were silent with aston- 
ishment, Peter decided all doubt concerning the full reception of these 
new converts into the Church by the argument, " Can any man forbid 
water that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy 
Ghost as well as ice f r ' He commanded them to be baptized in the 
name of the Lord, and stayed some days among them. 

This event was the crown and consummation of Peter's ministry. 
He, who had first preached the resurrection to the Jews, baptized the 
fir§t converts, and confirmed the Samaritans, now, without the advice 
or co-operation of any of his colleagues, under direct communication 
from heaven, first threw down the barrier which separated proselytes 
of the gate from Israelites ; first established principles which issued 
in the complete fusion of the Hebrew and Gentile elements in the 
Church. The narrative of this event, which stands alone in minute 
circumstantiality of incidents and accumulation of supernatural agency, 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED. UT 

is twice recorded by St. Luke. The chief points to be recorded are, 
first, the peculiar fitness of Cornelius, both as a representative of Ro- 
man force and nationality, and a devout and liberal worshipper, to be 
a recipient of such privileges; and secondly, the state of the Apostle's 
own mind. Whatever may have been his hopes or fears touching the 
heathen, the idea had certainly not yet crossed him that they could 
become Christians without first becoming Jews. As a loyal and be- 
lieving Hebrew, he could not contemplate the removal of Gentile 
disqualifications, without a distinct assurance that those enactments of 
the Law which concerned them were abrogated by a divine legislator. 
The vision could not therefore have been the product of a subjective 
impression : it was strictly objective, presented to his mind by an ex- 
ternal influence. Yet the will of the Apostle was not controlled, it 
was simply enlightened. The intimation in the state of trance did 
not at once overcome his reluctance. It was not until his conscious- 
ness was fully restored, and he had well considered the meaning of 
the vision, that he learned that the distinction of cleanness and un- 
clean ness in outward things belonged to a temporary dispensation. It 
was no mere acquiescence in a positive command, but the development 
of a spirit full of generous impulses, which found utterance in the 
words spoken by Peter, on that occasion, both in presence of Cornelius 
and afterward at Jerusalem. 

But the Church at Jerusalem were slow to learn the lesson involved 
in the tidings that the Gentiles had also received the Word of God. 
When Peter returned to Jerusalem, he was accused by " those of the 
circumcision " because he had eaten with the uncircumcised. But his 
plain narrative of the whole transaction, crowned by the argument 
that, in the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, he had recognized that 
same baptism of the Spirit which Christ had promised as the sign of 
his presence with the Apostles themselves, silenced every objection, 
and opened every mouth in praise to God for the great revelation 
which marks this epoch in the history of the Church v — " Then hath 
God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto UjeP Thus had the 
preaching of the Word, which the Apostles had begun, according to 
their Lord's command, from Jerusalem, reached every class within the 
limits of Judaea; the Jew and the Samaritan; the proselyte from the 
distant south, and the Gentiles from Rome herself; while the Great 
Apostle of the Gentiles had received his divine commission, which he 
was already beginning to exercise in Syria and Cilicia. 

Nor was this all, for Jerusalem was surprised by the tidings that 
the Gospel had reached the Greek capital of the East. In fact, in 



748 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




ANTIOCH. 



A. D. 
41-42. 



the history of the diffusion of Christianity, Antioch occupies a place 
even more conspicuous than Jerusalem itself. There the first Gentile 
Church was formed ; there the name of Christian was first 
heard; and thence the Gospel was first diffused over the 
Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire and carried over 
into Europe. Its geographical position, its political and commercial 
importance, and the presence of a large and powerful Jewish element 
in its population, were the more obvious characteristics which made it 
fit for such a centre of Gentile Christianity. The great wave of Gos- 
pel diffusion, which had its centre in the blow struck at Stephen and 
the Christians at Jerusalem, passed over the northern frontier of 
Palestine, along the Phoenician coast, across to Cyprus, and into Syria 
as far as Antioch. But, while the dispersed Christians preached the 
Gospel everywhere, it was at first only to the Jews. But certain of 
the Hellenists among them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, soon grew 
bolder ; and, on their arrival at Antioch, they spake to the Greeks, 
preaching the Lord Jesus. "And the hand of the Lord was with 
them, and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." 
It is probable that these Greeks were in the same religious position as 
Cornelius — proselytes of the gate — and their conversion was so nearly 
simultaneous with his, that when the news reached Jerusalem it 
found the Church prepared to act on the lesson taught through Peter. 
Barnabas — who, as at once a Levite and a native of Cyprus, as well 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED. 149 

as by the powers of gentle persuasion that gained him his surname, 
was a chief link between the Hebrews and the Hellenists — besides 
having the higher qualifications so emphatically recorded by St. Luke: 
" He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith " — 
Barnabas was sent to Antioch. The lesson that had been given to 
Peter needed not repetition in his case. It was enough for him to 
see " the grace of God," to exhort the new converts to cleave to the 
Lord with all their heart. His labors were more and more success- 
ful ; " much people was added unto the Lord." Barnabas saw in this 
movement at Antioch the beginning of a great w r ork among the 
Greeks ; and, intent upon finding a fit associate in the new labors 
before him, he departed to Tarsus to seek Saul, whom he had former- 
ly introduced to the Apostles. 

Meanwhile the state of rest enjoyed by the Churches of Judasa had 
come to an end. Upon the assassination of Caligula, the praetorian 
cohorts of Rome had raised Claudius to the purple ; and one of the 
new emperor's first acts was to reward the services of Herod Agrip- 
pa I. with the kingdom of Judaea (a. d. 41). We have already de- 
scribed that policy of conciliation to the Jews, which led Herod to 
begin the first regal persecution of the Christians by the beheading of 
the first Apostolic martyr, James, the brother of John, and to follow 
up the stroke by the imprisonment of Peter. It was during the 
Passover, probably in the last year of Herod's short reign (a. d. 44), 
that he placed Peter under the strictest guard, intending to gratify 
the people by his death as soon as the feast was over. The night 
before the day fixed for the execution had arrived ; and Peter long 
since prepared by Christ's prediction for the death which now seemed 
appointed for the very season of his Master's passion, was sleeping 
soundly between two soldiers, bound by two chains, when a sudden 
light filled bis cell ; an angel aroused him from his sleep, and led him 
through guards and through doors that opened of their own accord 
into the street. The angel had departed before Peter recovered from 
the impression that all was a vision. He repaired to the house of 
Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many disciples were assem- 
bled in prayer. Alarmed at first by his knocking at the door, on 
that night of special danger, they could scarcely be convinced by the 
sound of his own voice, but thought that it was his angel. Admit- 
ted at length, Peter told them the manner of his deliverance, and, 
having sent a special message to James, and the other brethren, de- 
parted into some safe retreat. In the morning the prison was found in 
full security and order, but with the prisoner gone. The king took veil- 




ANCIENT WRITING MATERIALS. 



A. D. 43. 



geance on the guards, and then departed for Csesarea, to keep that festi- 
val at which he himself became the signal mark of God's vengeance. 
From the position of this narrative in the Acts, between 
the mission of Paul and Barnabas by the Church of Antioch 
and their return, they would naturally seem to have been witnesses 
of the persecution ; but it is doubtful whether their visit took place 
before the death of Herod. We must look back to the events that 
led Paul to pay this his second visit to Jerusalem after his conversion. 
The interval of uncertain length, which he spent in Cilicia and Syria, 
after his flight from Jerusalem to Tarsus, is a blank in the story of the 
Acts ; but some commentators refer to this period the chief part at 
least of the perils and sufferings which he recounts to the Corinthians, 
including two Roman and five Jewish scourgings, and three ship- 
wrecks. At all events, we may safely regard this as the great proba- 
tionary period of the Apostle's ministry, in which, laboring alone and 
unaided by man, he was specially prepared for the wide field to which 
he was called when Barnabas came to Tarsus to seek his aid for the 
work at Antioch. The two devoted brethren labored for a whole 
year in the Church at Antioch, " teaching much people," till the ad- 
herents of the new faith grew to such importance as to be enrolled 
among the schools of religious and philosophic opinion recognized by 
the Greeks and Romans. The disciples were called Chkistians first 
at Antioch ; and they soon gave the first great example of a benefi- 
cence peculiarly Christian. 

It cannot but be regarded as a special act of Divine Providence, 
that knit together in " the fellowship of giving and receiving " the 
two branches of the Church, which had thus grown up among the 
Jews and Greeks, and which might have been tempted into a rivalry 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED. 



751 



foreshadowing the worldly conflicts of the " Patriarchs " of Jerusalem 
and Antioch. Certain prophets went down from Jerusalem to Anti- 
och, one of whom, named Agabus — who afterward warned Paul of 
his imprisonment — foretold through the Spirit the approach of a great 
famine. The fulfilment of the prediction is placed in the Acts " in 
the days of Claudius Caesar ; " but Josephus mentions a great famine 
which afflicted Judaea when Cuspius Fadus and Tiberias Alexander 
were procurators of Judaea. Now Fadus was the first procurator sent 
out when Judaea was again brought under the Roman government 
after the death of Herod Agrippa I. It would of course be at the 
beginning of the famine that the Christians of Antioch, forewarned 
by the prophet, sent relief to the brethren in Judaea by the hands of 
Barnabas and Saul, whose visit to Jerusalem may therefore be placed 
in A. D. 45. A confirmatory indication of the date is obtained from 
their taking back with them John Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, 
who may have been specially exposed to persecution on account of the 
assembly of the brethren in his mother's house. Nothing more is 
recorded of this visit in the Acts ; and it deserves special notice that, 
if its time be rightly fixed, the 



recent flight of Peter from Je- 
rusalem would prevent any in- 
tercourse on this occasion be- 
tween him and Paul. 

But we learn from Paul's 
own testimony that there was 
not wanting to him, on this 
occasion also, one of those su- 
pernatural visits which appear 
to have marked each one of 
his sojournings at Jerusalem, 
and which indicate the care 



*^% 




ANCIENT BOOK AND STYLUS. 



of his Divine Master to renew the grace given to him at first, and to 
keep up his sensitive spirit to the pitch of his mighty work. That 
marvellous rapture (probably, like his former vision, in the Temple) — 
in which, whether in or out of the body he could not tell, he was 
caught up into the third heaven, and heard words which no man 
might utter — is stated in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the 
date of which is fixed to A. D. 57, to have occurred "about fourteen 
years ago," a phrase which justifies our computing by years current, 
and so brings us to A. D. 44 or 45. And this view is most admirably 
suited to the revelation which was thus made to the Apostle on the 



752 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

eve of his departure for his first missionary tour among the Gentiles. 
For then it was that he was about especially to encounter those " in- 
firmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, distresses for Christ's 
sake," in which he most gladly gloried rather than in the honor of 
the revelation itself. Then it was that he was taught, as a needful 
sequel to the revelation, the great lesson of Christian humility and 
confidence — " My grace is sufficient for thee ; for my strength is made 
perfect in weakness." But even Paul's self-sacrificing spirit needed 
to be taught this lesson by the discipline, not of suffering only, but of 
a humiliating affliction ; and, like Job, he was given over to the great 
enemy, to worry though not to devour, within the compass of his 
tether. " Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abun- 
dance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn (or rather, 
stake) in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should 
be exalted above measure." That this was some permanent infirmity 
(0x0x04,), which troubled and hindered the Apostle through his subse- 
quent career, seems plain from his expression of resignation to it, after 
his thrice-repeated prayer for its removal had been answered only by 
an encouragement to submission. Nor need we hesitate to draw from 
the general course of God's providence the conclusion that it was 
either, like physical infirmities in general, a relic of some past sin, or 
that, like Jacob's lameness, it was a memorial of some great incident 
in his history. Connecting it with the statement that " his bodily 
presence was weak and his speech contemptible," in striking contrast 
to his weighty letters, some suppose it to have been an impediment in 
his speech, which would be peculiarly distressing, nay, injurious, to 
such a man engaged in such a work — a judicial infliction on that 
tongue which had blasphemed Christ and condemned the first Chris- 
tian martyr. A more ingenious conjecture regards the affliction as an 
infirmity of eye-sight, varying from time to time in severity, the relic 
of the blindness with which Paul was smitten on his way to Damas- 
cus, and the perpetual memorial, as in the case of Jacob, of a conflict 
with God, from which no man could come forth unscathed. It can 
scarcely be doubted that the affliction was the same as that " infirmity 
of the flesh," from which Paul suffered in his first visit to the Gala- 
tians, who, instead of despising him for it, were ready to have plucked 
out their own eyes and have given them to him. But after all, it is best 
to believe that in this, as in other cases, the silence of Scripture is in- 
tentional ; to the end that men of natures more ardent than their 
strength, whose spirit is willing, but whose flesh is weak, may learn 
from Paul's example to acknowledge and bow beneath the hand of 




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48 



753 



154 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

God in those impediments, but for which they would become boasters; 
nay, to rejoice, that the glory of what they can yet do is not their own 
but God's. 

Some time after the return of Barnabas and Saul from 
., ' ' this mission, in which the latter had a special opportunity 

for gaining the confidence of his Jewish brethren before en- 
tering on his great work among the Gentiles, the signal for that work 
was divinely given. The disciples composing the Church at Antioch 
were commanded by the Holy Ghost to send forth the missionaries, 
in these words, " Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where- 
unto I have called them." 

All this time, we infer from the form of St. Luke's language — 
which cannot be accidental — that Saul was subordinate to Barnabas. 
Until Saul becomes Paul, we read of " Barnabas and Saul ; " after- 
ward we have both. " Paul and Barnabas " and " Barnabas and Paul." 
In the latter passage, moreover, they are jointly called Apostles, a 
dignity bestowed on Barnabas (if not before) by this divine call to a 
work properly apostolic. Just as the mystic number of the twelve at 
first referred to the tribes of Israel, the departure from it by the ad- 
dition of Saul and Barnabas was one sign of the indefinite extension 
of the Gospel. When we look back, from the higher ground of St. 
Paul's apostolic activity, to the years that passed between his conver- 
sion and the first missionary journey, we cannot observe without 
reverence the patient humility with which Saul waited for his Mas- 
ter's time. He did not say for once only, " Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do ? " Obedience to Christ was thenceforth his ruling 
principle. Submitting, as he believed, to his Lord's direction, he 
was content to work for a long time as the subordinate colleague of 
his seniors in the faith. He was thus the better prepared, when the 
call came, to act with the authority which that call conferred upon 
him. He left Antioch, however, still the second to Barnabas. Every 
thing was done with orderly gravity in the sending forth of the two 
missionaries. Their brethren, after fasting and prayer, laid their 
hands on them, and so they departed. 

First Missionary Journey of Barnabas and Saul. — The 

two Apostles, with John Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, as 
a sort of subordinate minister, embarked at Seleucia, the port of Anti- 
och, at the mouth of the Orontes, for Salamis in Cyprus. Besides 
the constant intercourse between the two ports, which are only distant 
a few hours' sail, and the natural desire of Barnabas to begin the 
work among his own Jdndred, we have seen that there were already 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED. 755 

Christians in the island, to whom Antioch itself owed in part the 
preaching of the Gospel ; and there were numerous synagogues of 
Jews. We must observe that, in each of these missionary journeys, 
the Apostles, though sent forth specially to the Gentiles, never failed 
first to offer the Gospel to their Jewish brethren. For not only was 
this the order prescribed by the Lord, but the most hopeful course of 
reaching the Gentiles was through the proselytes and Hellenistic 
Jews, though their hardness of heart ultimately frustrated this hope. 
Such was the order proclaimed by St. Paul in the synagogue at Anti- 
och in Pisidia : — " The Jews at Jerusalem, in their wilful ignorance 
of the prophets, have fulfilled them in condemning Christ : to you, 
therefore, children of the stock of Abraham everywhere, is the word 
of this salvation sent." " It was necessary that the Word of God 
should first have been spoken to you ; but, seeing that ye also put it 
from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we 
turn to the Gentiles." 

In this passage, as at every step in the whole journey, we see the 
Apostles' own estimate of the work to which the Holy Ghost had 
called them — to speak the Word of God ; and accordingly they began 
their ministry at Salamis by preaching the Word of God in the syna- 
gogues of the Jews. That Word was the same with which Christ 
himself had begun his public ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth 
— the fulfilment of prophecy in the coming of Jesus Christ to be the 
Saviour of the whole world. Thus they traversed the length of Cy- 
prus, from Salamis on the eastern coast to Paphos on the western. 
The latter city, celebrated throughout Greek history for the orgies of 
Venus, was now the residence of the Roman proconsul — for Cyprus, 
though at first made one of Caesar's provinces, was restored by 
Augustus to the Senate, and we possess a coin of one of its proconsuls 
of the time of Claudius. This office was now held by Sergius 
Paulus, a man of intelligence, but, like most of the Roman nobility 
who at that time took any interest in intellectual pursuits, including 
the Emperor Claudius, prone to curiosity about the occult oriental 
learning and magic arts, among the pretenders to which many Jews 
were conspicuous. Such counterfeits of spiritual power have always 
proved an influence most hostile to spiritual religion ; and the Chris- 
tians had not only to expose the cheat, but to clear themselves from 
the suspicion of trading, like the others, upon their spiritual powers. 
With such an impostor, a magician named Bar-Jesus or Elymas, the 
Apostles were brought into conflict by the proconsul's desire to hear 
tl,iem. The simple truth for which the better class of Romans were 



756 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

yearning made such an impression on his mind, that Elymas, like 
Simon Magus at Samaria, became alarmed for his profits, and sought 
to turn away the proconsul from the faith. What sophistry he used 
the narrative does not record, any more than Paul condescended to re- 
fute it, when he exposed its true source in the indignant rebuke : — 
" O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou 
enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right 
ways of the Lord?" These words were not Paul's own, for he spoke 
them filled with the Holy Ghost, and the authority of the condemna- 
tion was proved by the miracle which sent Elymas forth from the 
presence of the proconsul, blind and seeking for any to lead him by 
the hand. But the eyes of Sergius Paulus were opened to receive the 
spiritual light of faith in Christ ; and we cannot doubt that the ex- 
ample of such a convert gave an impulse to the Gospel among the 
provincial Romans. 

The rebuke of Elymas is introduced by the words, 
" Then Saul, who is also Paul," which naturally give the 
first impression that the Apostle, or others for him, marked an epoch 
in his ministry so important as the conversion of the proconsul by 
adopting his distinguished convert's name. Jerome goes so far as to 
disparage the surnames which men like Africanus won by their deeds 
of war, in contrast with this trophy of Paul's victory over heathenism. 
But such boasting is not after the Apostle's own manner; and the 
very common occurrence of double names, one Hebrew and one 
Greek or Roman, among the Jews of this age — Simon Peter, Simeon 
Niger, Barsabas Justus, John Mark — goes far to justify the belief 
that a Hellenistic Jew of Tarsus, whom we know to have been free- 
born, may have been called by both names from his infancy. The 
invariable use in the Acts of Saul up to this point, and Paul 
afterward, and the distinct mention which St. Luke himself makes of 
the transition, is accounted for by the desire to mark the turning- 
point between Saul's activity among his own countrymen and his new 
labors as the Apostle of the Gentiles. He is never afterward men- 
tioned by any other name than Paul, whether in the Acts or in his 
own Epistles, and in the allusion to him by St. Peter he is named 
" our beloved brother Paul." 

The precedence henceforth assigned to Paul over Barnabas is 
marked by the statement, that " Paul and his company," setting sail 
from Paphos, came to Perga in Pamphylia, a city about seven miles 
up the river Cestrus, which falls into the inmost bight of the bay of 
Attalia. Small vessels were constantly trading between this port 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED. T5t 

and Paphos ; and Paul's course was now directed to the region which 
adjoined the scene of his former labors in Cilicia, and which gave the 
readiest access to the districts beyond the Taurus — Pisidia and 
Lycaonia — which abounded with Jewish synagogues. The passage 
of that mountain chain, long regarded as one of the great lines of 
demarcation between the Grseco-Roman and Oriental worlds, marks 
the epoch at which the Gospel overpassed the limits of Semitic civili- 
zation. This new enterprise was beset with dangers. The highlands 
of Pisidia could only be penetrated by passes, subject to be swept by 
the sudden rise of the mountain torrents, and infested by the wildest 
banditti in the world; and the Apostles went forward through 
"perils of rivers and perils of robbers" only to plunge into "perils 
from their kindred, perils from the heathen." The prospect dis- 
heartened the youthful spirit of John Mark, who, " departing from 
them, returned to Jerusalem." The ground on which Paul afterward 
refused to take Mark upon the second missionary journey, even at the 
cost of a quarrel with such a friend as Barnabas — because " he de- 
parted from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the 
work " — proves that he regarded Mark's desertion as at least a case 
of grievous instability. But it hardly follows that Mark was intent 
solely upon rest in his home at Jerusalem. Had mere cowardice 
been the cause of his withdrawal, Barnabas would not so soon have 
chosen him for another journey. His desertion of Paul may have 
been prompted in part by a wish to rejoin Peter and the Apostles 
engaged in preaching in Palestine. There is nothing strange in the 
character of a warm impulsive young man, drawn almost equally 
toward the two great teachers of the faith, Paul and Peter ; with the 
latter of whom he is always connected by the testimony of ecclesiastical 
antiquity. The steadfast kindness of Barnabas gave Mark the oppor- 
tunity of returning to the work he had deserted, by taking him as his 
companion to Cyprus after he had separated from Paul ; and it is 
pleasing to find him not only restored to Paul's intimacy during his 
first imprisonment at Rome, commended to the Church at Colossse, 
and acknowledged as his fellow-laborer, but to hear Paul, among 
his last words, desiring that very aid from Mark which he had once 
rejected : — u Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable 
to me for the ministry" In the interval between St. Paul's first and 
second imprisonments, Mark seems to have been brought again, by 
that journey to the East to which Paul alludes as contemplated, into 
co-operation with Peter, with whom we find him at Babylon, and 
who speaks of him affectionately as " my son." Meanwhile his de- 



758 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

sertion must have added to the anxieties under which Paul and 
Barnabas plunged into the wilds of Pisidia. 

Their first halting-place was at Anttoch in Pisidia, 
founded, like the Syrian Antioch, by Seleucus Nicator, and 
named after his father Antiochus ; a place scarcely second to the other 
for its importance in the history of Gentile Christianity. It was here 
that the first formal declaration was made, that the offer of salvation, 
rejected by the Jews, was handed over to the Gentiles; and here too 
was first proclaimed the great Pauline doctrine, in which is summed 
up the essence of Christianity as a saving faith. Like their Master 
at Nazareth, the Apostles went into the Jewish synagogue on the 
Sabbath, and sat down. After the usual reading of the Law and the 
Prophets, they were invited to address the congregation. Then Paul, 
who from the beginning of this journey appears in the character of 
the chief speaker, uttered the first of those discourses which, whether 
in the form of addresses or epistles, abounding in surpassing eloquence 
as well as powerful reasoning, have ever since formed the great store 
of Christian theology. He related to them, step by step, how God 
had set apart and cared for Israel, how he had favored them above all 
nations, and how he had gradually led them forward to the time of 
the coming of his Son, the blessed Jesus. The Apostle then pro- 
ceeded to declare unto them the Christian faith, and to entreat them 
to embrace it. At the same time he intimated his prophetic know- 
ledge that they would despise the Gospel, reject it, and perish. 

His address made such an impression upon his hearers that they 
requested that he would repeat it on the following Sabbath. On the 
appointed day the synagogue was filled with the people of the city, 
both Jews and Gentiles. The principal Jews endeavored to dispute 
with Paul, and violently blasphemed the name of Jesus of Nazareth ; 
whereupon the Apostle told them that as the Jews would not accept 
the salvation offered to them, the Gospel was thenceforth to be 
preached to the Gentiles as well. 

The announcement caused great joy among the Gentiles, "and as 
many as were ordained to eternal life believed ; and the word of the 
Lord was published throughout all the region." This success raised 
the anger of the Jews to the highest pitch ; and then began the perse- 
cution which Paul had now to suffer from them at every step. In 
these foreign countries, it is not the Cross or Nazareth that is most 
immediately repulsive to the Jews: it is the wound given to Jewish 
importance in the association of Gentiles with Jews as the receivers 
of the good tidings. If the Gentiles had been asked to become Jews, 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED. 



T59 



no offence would have been taken. The Jewish proselytes, among 
whom were many women of distinction and the chief men of the city, 
seem to have grudged the admission of the Gentiles except by the 
same gate ; and they were easily stirred up to drive Paul and Barna- 
bas out of their bounds. So they, shaking off the dust of their feet 
against them, as Jesus had commanded, went on to Iconium, which 
was situated at the western limit of Lycaonia. But the persecution 
which expelled them failed to destroy the Church which they had 
planted at Antioch: "and the disciples were filled with joy, and with 
the Holy Ghost." These events at Antioch are evidently related thus 
fully in the Acts as a leading example of the way in which the Gospel 
was rejected by the Jews and received by the Gentiles in many other 
cities, and the discourse of Paul furnishes one type, as that at Athens 
gives another, of his mode of addressing audiences of various kinds. 

At Iconium, as at Anti- 
och, the Apostles began their 
work by preaching in the 
synagogue, and gained many 
converts both among the 
Jews and Gentiles. Here too 
the unbelieving Jews raised 
a persecution, but by the 
new mode of stirring up dis- 
affection among the Gentiles. 
Still the Apostles held their 
ground for a long time, and 

their testimony was confirmed by many miracles. At length the 
whole city was divided into two factions; and the hostile Gentiles 
conspired with their Jewish instigators to raise a riot and stone the 
Apostles. Warned of the plot, they fled to the eastern and wilder 
part of Lycaonia, where there were no Jewish settlements, and but 
little Greek civilization ; and they preached the Gospel in the cities 
of Lystra and Derbe. 

Here their mission was attested by a miracle, the very counterpart 
of the first that had been wrought by Peter and John at Jerusalem — 
the cure of a cripple at Lystra. The simple natives ascribed the work 
to a present deity, and exclaimed, in the rude dialect of Lycaonia, 
" The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men." Their 
choice of Barnabas for Jove seems to show that " the Son of Exhorta- 
tion " was marked by a calm dignity suited to his character, and that 
Paul was — as he himself says — " in bodily presence weak;" but, as 




COURT OF AN EASTERN HOUSE. 



760 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

he was the chief speaker, they took him for Hermes (Mercury), the 
interpreter and messenger of the gods. Their attempt to oifer sacri- 
fice to the Apostles called forth a discourse, which may be regarded 
as a type of those first addressed to mere heathens. Ignorant of the 
Jewish prophecies, and strangers to the covenants of promise, they 
acknowledged that simple truth of dependence on a Supreme Being 
which no race of mankind seems altogether to have lost ; and the 
Apostles, after earnestly avowing themselves to be but men like them, 
call upon them to turn from these vanities of idol-worship, "unto the 
living God, which made heaven and earth and the sea, and all things 
that are therein." In place of those arguments from Scripture which 
they had used with the Jews, they appeal to his gifts of " rain from 
heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness," 
and all the other goodness whereby he left himself not without a wit- 
ness, even while he suffered the nations to walk in their own ways. 
The argument thus briefly stated at Lvstra is the same which Paul 
afterward addressed to the Athenians, and which he works up in the 
opening of the Epistle to the Romans as the basis of the responsibility 
of the heathen. We see presently that this discourse made converts ; 
but the people in general were disappointed at the repulse of the 
honors they had offered. The easy step from blind worship to rabid 
persecution was soon taken, at the instigation of certain Jews who 
came from Antioch and Iconium. Paul was stoned and dragged out 
of the city for dead ; but, as the new disciples stood round him, he 
revived and returned into the city, whence he and Barnabas departed 
the next day for Derbe, and there they gained many disciples. 

This was the furthest point of the present journey ; and here they 
seem to have rested for some time after the dangers they had so nar- 
rowly escaped. But, prepared to face those dangers again for the 
sake of the new converts, they retraced their route through Lystra, 
Iconium and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, and add- 
ing to the exhortation to continue in the faith the warning pointed by 
their own experience — "That we must through much tribulation en- 
ter into the kingdom of God." Thus they returned to Perga ; and 
then slightly varied their former route by proceeding to the port of 
Attalia, where they embarked for Antioch. 

This return journey through Pisidia and Pamphylia is memorable 
for the first record of the appointment of permanent officers, here 
called Elders, for the teaching and guidance, the comfort and gov- 
ernment of the churches. We have already had an incidental mention 
of such officers, even in the churches of Judaea, which enjoyed the 






THE GENTILES RECEIVED. T61 

ministry of the Apostles and of the prophets and teachers who had 
been the associates of the Apostles. Much more did the newly- 
planted churches which Paul and Barnabas were leaving to them- 
selves — severed from those of Judsea and Syria by the Taurus and 
another language — need to have the means of edification and order 
complete within themselves ; and so they ordained them Elders in 
every church, and commended them to the Lord, with the prayer and 
fasting which form a perpetual model for every appointment of 
Christian ministers. 

The report of his First Missionary Journey, made to the 
assembled Church of Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, fur- 
nished a decisive proof that the prophetic intimations, in consequence 
of which they were sent forth, were fulfilled ; and that " God had 
opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles." Paul and Barnabas had 
already for some time returned to their ordinary labors at Antioch, 
when the prospects of the Gentile converts were imperilled by that 
Judaizing spirit, to which may be traced all the heresies that began 
to trouble the Church even in the Apostolic age. Certain men which 
came down from Judsea taught the brethren — " Except ye be circum- 
cised after the manner of Moses, ve cannot be saved." Paul was 
supported by Barnabas in that vigorous opposition to this attempt to 
conjure back the genius of Christianity within the cast-off shell of 
Judaism, which is now so familiar to us in his Epistles. After no 
small dissension and disputation/the Church decided that Paul and 
Barnabas, with other brethren, should go up to Jerusalem to the 
Apostles and Elders about this question. • As they travelled by land 
through Phoenicia and Samaria, they caused great joy to the brethren 
in those regions by declaring the conversion of the Gentiles ; nor were 
they less cordially received, at least in the first instance, by the Church 
at Jerusalem, with the Apostles and Elders. 

This brings us into contact with one of the difficulties in St. Paul's 
history. In the Epistle to the Galatians he gives an account of a 
visit that he paid to Jerusalem, fourteen years after that first visit 
which took place three years from his conversion. What he tells us 
of this visit seems inconsistent with any of those recorded in the Acts, 
save that now before us ; and, as Paley holds, it is clear that the visit 
of Gal. ii. is either that of Acts xv. or that it is not mentioned in the 
Acts at all. From Gal. ii. it appears that the visit there described 
was made after Paul's great success among the heathen, and not after 
the decision of the Church recorded in Acts xv., so that the only time 
left for the visit is the interval during which Luke tells us that Paul 



762 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

and Barnabas abode at Antioch a long time with the disciples. Of 
course this phrase does not exclude a private journey to Jerusalem ; 
but we must not supply such an event without positive evidence. 
Xay, more, the occasion named in the Epistle can scarcely have arisen 
so soon, for no cause of the doubt " lest by any means he should run 
or had run in vain " is suggested, except through that opposition of 
the Judaizers which was the immediate cause of the visit related in 
Acts xv. The objection, that no mention is made in the Galatians of 
the visit mentioned in Acts xi. and xii., disappears at once, when we 
observe that Paul is writing of his communications with the Apostles 
in relation to his ministry among the Gentiles. And this consideration 
supplies so strong a proof of the one occasion on which alone the visit 
could have taken place, that the other objections are best answered by 
-interweaving the two narratives. 

The clear judgment concerning the course they had pur- 
sued, which had made Paul and Barnabas firm in their 
resistance to the Judaizers, did not scorn confirmation by the judg- 
ment of the other Apostles and of the Church. That conscientious 
self-searching which kept Paul alive, in the full career of his success, 
to the fear lest after preaching to others he might himself be a cast- 
away, led him now to face the question raised by the Judaizers, 
whether he had been misguided in his recent course or in its purposed 
resumption. Side by side with the resolution of the Church of Anti- 
och, to seek light from their brethren at Jerusalem, was a divine im- 
pulse prompting Paul himself to confer with his brother Apostles. 
He " went up by revelation," as well as deputed by the Church. The 
private conferences which he himself mentions are not only thus per- 
fectly consistent with the public proceedings recorded in the Acts, but 
the narrative of the latter leaves room for the former in the interval 
between the first reception of Paul and Barnabas and the beginning 
of the Pharisaic opposition. Paul himself says that he communicated 
to them the Gospel which he preached among the Gentiles — referring 
doubtless to the report which Luke mentions as first made by Paul 
and Barnabas to the whole Church — and then adds, " but separately 
to those of reputation/' and especially to James, Peter and John. The 
result of these private conferences is in perfect accordance with the 
public debate and decision related by St. Luke. The reputed "pillars" 
of the Church "added nothing to Paul" — no new truth for him and 
his converts to learn, no new law for them to observe. As if to bring 
the chief question to a practical issue, Paul and Barnabas had taken 
with them Titus, who, though a Greek, was not required to be cir- 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED. 163 

cumcised. The Apostles at Jerusalem cordially recognized what God 
himself had made clear, that "the Gospel of the uncircumcision " 
had been committed to Paul, like " the Gospel of the circumcision " 
to Peter, and that the one could show miracles as convincing as the 
other ; and they gave Paul and Barnabas the right hands of fellow- 
ship, as the pledge of the solemn compact, that these two should go 
to the Gentiles and they themselves to the Jews. St. Paul adds one 
point which proves that, amid these questions of doctrine and ritual, 
all the Apostles were agreed on the supreme importance of the fruit 
of* practical beneficence and liberality in Christianity: — " Only they 
would that we should remember the poor • the same which I also 
was forward to do." 

The public discussion of the great question by the whole* 
Church was brought on by " certain of the sect of the Phari- 
sees who believed." The strong language of Paul implies that, besides 
Christians who had not yet overcome their Jewish prejudices, some at 
least of these opponents were Jews who had made a false profession, 
either to find grounds of accusation against the Christians, or to lead 
them back by another route to Judaism. Joining in the mutual con- 
gratulations of the brethren on the conversion of the Gentiles, they yet 
contended that such converts could only be received into the Church 
through the door of Judaism, — " It was needful to circumcise them, 
and to command them to keep the law of Moses." The question thus 
raised involved the whole issue of the adaptation of Christianity to 
the world — to man as man in every state. 

It is to be observed that the Apostles did not exercise the power, 
which they might doubtless have assumed as involved in their mis- 
sion, of legislating on the matter. They came together with the 
Elders : the whole body of the Church at Jerusalem were not only 
present with one accord, but took part in the decision ; and it was 
embodied in a letter drawn up in the name of the Apostles, and 
Elders, and brethren. It was not till after much discussion among 
those who are not named, that Peter stood up to remind the brethren 
that the principle at issue had been already settled by his mission to 
Cornelius, when Go,d gave the same witness of the Holy Ghost to the 
believing Gentiles that he had given to the believing Jews. Nay, 
more, he shows the reason of this in the essential character of the new 
dispensation, that it relates to man's inner life; and so "God, which 
knoweth the hearts" passing over what was external in the relations 
of these converts to the Mosaic rites, " purified their hearts through 
faith." And as they believed that salvation came to both Jew and 



764 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Gentile alike through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, it was a 
mere tempting of God to add a yoke which even those lawfully sub- 
jected to it had never been able to bear. Then, amid the silent 
attention of the whole multitude, Paul and Barnabas related the facts 
to which Peter had appealed, " declaring what miracles and wonders 
God had wrought among the Gentiles by them." James, the only 
other Apostle who is reported as speaking, — the Apostle who was 
most intimately connected with the Church of Jerusalem, and who had 
the greatest weight with the Jewish party, — sums up the discussion. 
With incomparable simplicity and wisdom he binds up the testimony 
of recent facts with the testimony of ancient prophecy, and gives a 
practical judgment upon the question. 

His judgment was adopted by the Apostles and Elders and 
brethren. They wrote to the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and 
Cilicia, disavowing the men who, they say, "going out from us, 
troubled you with words " (or disputations), and bearing emphatic 
testimony to Paul and Barnabas, as the " beloved, who have hazarded 
their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." The judgment 
which they then pronounce they declare to be that of the Holy Ghost, 
as well as their own — referring doubtless to some sign vouchsafed to 
the assembly. That judgment was, that no further burden should be 
laid upon the Gentile converts, " except these, which must of necessity 
be borne" — burdens only to those who had been used to the polluting 
rites of heathenism — " that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and 
from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication." The 
injunction that the Gentiles should abstain from pollutions of idols 
and from fornication explained itself: the abstinence from things 
strangled and from blood is desired as a concession to the customs of 
the Jews who were to be found in every city, and for whom it was 
still right, when they had believed in Jesus Christ, to observe the 
Law. 

By this decision, the Apostles and Church at Jerusalem — the 
natural guardians of whatever it might have been right to preserve 
in the ancient dispensation — gave their solemn and final approval to 
that version of the Gospel which Paul had preached by the revelation 
given to him. The emancipation of the Gentile converts from Jew- 
ish rites involved far more than their personal liberty. It abolished 
that separation of the race of Israel from the other nations, of which 
circumcision was the sign and seal ; and, in place of the divine favor 
of which they boasted as the sons of Abraham, acceptance with God 
was offered to Jew and Gentile in common through the new spiritual 



THE GENTILES RECEIVED. 765 

bond of faith in Christ. And, as the speech of St. Peter declares, this 
view of the Gospel was of no less vital moment to the Jew than to 
the Gentile. If the Jewish believers were thrown back on the Jew- 
ish law, and gave up the free and absolute grace of God, the Law 
became a mere burden, just as heavy to the Jew as it would be to the 
Gentile. The only hope for the Jew was in a Saviour who must be 
the Saviour of mankind. Thus the decision of the Jewish Church 
agrees with the teaching of St. Paul's Epistles; and the agreement 
between him and the other Apostles — that he should go to the Gen- 
tiles, and they to the circumcision — assuredly did not imply that 
different versions of the Gospel were to be preached to the Gentiles 
and the Jews. And that this one doctrine of a common faith in 
Jesus Christ might prove to be the seed of union in a holy life, the 
richer Gentiles were admonished to remember their poorer brethren 
in Palestine. How ready they were to discharge this duty, had al- 
ready been shown in the former mission of Paul to Jerusalem ; and 
his Epistles bear witness to his constancy in urging its systematic 
performance. 

But questions, which have been once for all settled in principle, are 
ever liable to be reopened in practice, not only by the opposition of 
malcontents, but by the infirmities of sincere men ; and, besides the 
life-long contest w T hich Paul had to maintain with the Judaizers, there 
was one memorable occasion on which he was compelled to reprove 
Peter himself for his compliance with the Judaizing spirit. On a 
visit to Antioch, which seems to have occurred not long after these 
events, Peter proved his full adoption of the new law of liberty by 
eating with the Gentiles, till certain Jewish Christians " came from 
James ;" when, for fear of them, he withdrew from all such inter- 
course. The other Jews, to use the strong phrase of Paul, " played 
the hypocrite with him," and even Barnabas was carried away with 
the rest. St. Paul, regarding their conduct as an open departure from 
" walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel" " withstood 
Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed," and said to him be- 
fore them all, "If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the 
Gentiles and not of the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to 
Judaize?" This was no opposition of Pauline to Petrine views; it 
was a faithful rebuke of blamable moral weakness. It has been well 
observed that the argument of St. Paul would have lost its force if 
St. Peter had been really of opinion that the law was obligatory on 
Gentile converts. "The point of St. Paul's rebuke is plainly this — 
that, in sanctioning the Jewish feeling which regarded eating with the 



766 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Gentiles as an unclean thing, St. Peter was untrue to his principles, 
was acting hypocritically and from fear." The result shows a mag- 
nanimity only to be ascribed to "a double portion" of the Holy Spirit 
resting on the Church as well as on them. 

And as, happily, no dispute had yet arisen between the churches, 
so there is no ground for calling the assembly at Jerusalem the First 
General Council. It was no meeting of delegates from all the 
churches, for even those sent from Antioch went rather to consult the 
sister church, and especially the Apostles, than to represent the views 
of their own church ; and the divine basis on which the decision is 
placed takes it quite out of the category of synodical sentences, which 
decide, without extinguishing, a grave difference of opinion, by the 
mere voice of a majority. If in any sense the First Council of the 
Church, it was the last which had a right to say, " It seemed good to 
the Holy Ghost and to us." 

As a personal confirmation of their letter, the Church of Jerusalem 
sent back, with Paul and Barnabas, Judas Barsabas and Silas,* 
" chief men among their brethren," who, being prophets, added their 
exhortations and encouragement to the joy and consolation which the 
letter caused. When their ministry was fulfilled, Judas returned to 
Jerusalem ; but Silas continued some time at Antioch, where Paul 
and Barnabas also resumed their labors. To complete this view as 
the extension of the Gospel to the Gentile world, we shall soon see 
that about this time it reached Rome itself. 

* This is the Greek abbreviated form of the Latin name Silvanus. 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. T6t 




CHAPTER XXXIX. 

ST. PAUL'S SECOND, OR GREAT MISSIONARY JOURNEY, AND THE ENTRANCE OF 

THE GOSPEL INTO EUROPE. 
[A. D. 49 or 51-53 or 54.] 

HE Second Missionary Journey of St. Paul, besides its wide 
extent and long duration, is memorable for the introduction of 
Christianity into Europe; though the Apostle's labors were 
still confined to that eastern division of the Roman Empire 
which was marked by the Adriatic. The journey extended 
over the space of three or four years, of which eighteen months were 
spent at Corinth. Beginning at Antioch, it embraced Cilicia, Ly- 
caonia, Phrygia, Galatia, Mysia and the Troad ; and, in 
Europe, Macedonia, Athens and Corinth ; whence Paul 
crossed the iEgean to Ephesus, and thence sailed to Csesarea, and so, 
after a hasty visit to Jerusalem, returned to Antioch. Its beginning 
was " some days " after the so-called Council at Jerusalem, but that 
the interval could not have been very long is proved by the fact that 
upon this journey Paul delivered the decrees to the churches of Syria 
and Cilicia, to whom they were addressed. Dr. Howson places the 
commencement of the circuit in A. D. 51, Mr. Lewin in A. d. 49, and 
it ended, according to the latter, in the autumn of A. D. 53, according 
to the former in the summer of A. d. 54. 

This great enterprise began with no parade of promises or prepara- 
tion, but in the natural proposal of Paul to Barnabas that they should 
revisit the brethren in all the cities where they had preached the 
Gospel, and inquire after their welfare. But it was probably not 
without some prophetic view of the great trials of courage and stead- 
fastness which awaited him, that he refused the proposal of Barnabas 
to take John Mark again with them. The plain language of St. Luke 
implies a sharp personal quarrel, embittered perhaps on the side of 
Barnabas by the rebuke he had lately shared with Peter. But the 
providence of God overruled human infirmities, and the result of the 
separation of the former comrades was that two apostolic missions 
went forth instead of one. Barnabas, with Mark, sailed as before to 
Cyprus, his native island ; and he is not again mentioned in the Acts. 
In the Epistles, however, Paul not only refers to his old comrade with 



768 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

affection and respect, but in a later passage he seems to imply that 
Barnabas was still laboring among the Gentiles, maintained, like him- 
self, by the work of his own hands. Paul found a new companion in 
Silas, whom we nave seen transferred from Jerusalem to Antioch ; 
and it was not long before the little band was increased by the most 
congenial fellowship of Timothy. Hence the laborers in this work 
are described by the Apostle himself by the formula, — " Paul and 
Silvanus and Timotheus." Luke, as is clearly shown by the sudden 
transition of his narrative to the first person and back again to the 
third, joined Paul's company at Alexandria Troas, but was left behind 
at Philippi, and he does not appear again in this journey. 

Commended by the brethren to the grace of God, Paul and Silas 
first visited the churches of Syria and Cilicia ; probably those which 
the Apostle had planted soon after his conversion. The statement 
that Paul confirmed these churches seems to have a particular refer- 
ence to the recent Judaistical controversy ; for " the decrees decided 
upon by the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem," which we presently 
find Paul and Silas enjoining upon the brethren in every city that 
they visited, were addressed to the Gentiles in Syria and Cilicia. 
And here Silas would be able to discharge the same office for which 
he had first been sent to Antioch, as a personal witness to the decision 
of the Church at Jerusalem. 

Crossing the Taurus by one of the more eastern passes — probably 
the usual route through the Cilician Gates — Paul traversed his old 
ground in Lycaonia, but in the reverse order, by Derbe, Lystra and 
Iconium. The general statement, that " the churches were established 
in the faith, and increased (or abounded) in number daily," is varied 
by the most interesting episode. At Lystra, Paul found a disciple 
named Timotheus, the offspring of one of those mixed marriages 
which had become common in this later period of Jewish history, and 
of whom a more detailed account will be given in another chapter of 
this book (Chap. XLIIL). Paul found in Timothy a devoted and 
faithful follower, and there sprang up between them at length, the 
most intimate and tender relations. 

These intimate relations date from Paul's second journey, 
when the Apostle, on arriving at Lystra, " would have him 
to go forth with him." During the interval of seven years, Timothy 
had grown up to manhood, and the " good report," which his char- 
acter had gained from the brethren at Iconium as well as Lystra, 
leads us to believe that he had been already employed in what was 
afterward to be the great labor of his life as " the messenger of the 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. 



T69 




EASTERN DIVAN. 



churches," and that it was his tried fitness for that office which 
determined St. Paul's choice. Those who had the deepest insight 
into character, and who spoke with a prophetic utterance, pointed to 
him, as others had pointed before to Paul and Barnabas, as specially 
fit for the missionary work in which the Apostle was engaged. Per- 
sonal feeling led St. Paul to the same conclusion, and Timothy was 
solemnly set apart — the whole assembly of the Elders laying their 
hands upon him, as did the Apostle himself — to do the work and 
possibly to bear the title of Evangelist 

But, before they went forth to the work, Paul " took and circum- 
cised him, because of the Jews which were in those quarters.: for 
they all knew that his father was a Greek," — an act the more 
remarkable, as Paul was engaged in delivering to the churches the 
decree made at Jerusalem, where Titus had been expressly exempted 
from circumcision. But Titus, so far as we know, was a Greek, 
without any intermixture of Jewish blood ; while Timothy, as the 
son of a Jewess, would appear to the Jews in the light of a negligent 
Israelite, the seal of whose profession had been disowned from his 
very infancy. That no offence had been felt hitherto, may be ex- 
plained by the predominance of the Gentile element in the churches 
of Lycaonia. But now his wider work would bring him into contact 
with the Jews, and the scandal would frustrate all his efforts as an 
Evangelist. So, in this case, Paul " became unto the Jews as a Jew, 
that he might gain the Jews." It is assuredly a conspicuous example 
of simple faithfulness in the narrative of the Acts, that St. Luke 
49 



no HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

should have recorded the incident without any further explanation to 
guard against the charge of inconsistency. None the less did Paul 
and Silvanus, with their new companion, " go through the cities, 
enjoining them to keep the decrees ordained by the Apostles and 
Elders at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established in the 
faith, and increased in number daily." 

At Iconium, or possibly at Antioch, they left the track of Paul's 
first journey, and — doubtless guided by those divine directions which 
attended each successive stage of their progress — they turned north- 
ward into the central region of Asia Minor, which is described by 
the general phrase of " Phrygia and the region of Galatia;'\ and all 
that we learn further from St. Luke of their course through the 
peninsula is this : — Being forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the 
word in Asia (the Roman province), they came into the eastern border 
of Mysia, and endeavored to enter Bithynia ; but the Spirit of Jesus 
did not permit them. So they passed through Mysia into the Troad ; 
and there, at the city of Alexandria Troas, Paul saw the vision which 
called them over into Europe. 

This brief outline may be in part filled up from St. Paul's Epistle 
to the Galatians. That people were the descendants of the great 
Celtic hordes which, repulsed in their attack on Northern Greece in 
the 3d century B. c, had overflowed the bounds of Europe, and 
occupied the central table-land of Asia Minor. There, adopting the 
Greek language, and hence called Gallogrceci, they practised the 
enthusiastic Phrygian orgies of Cybele, the mother of the Gods, with 
the natural fervor of their impulsive race. Such a people presented a 
most interesting field for the preacher of the Gospel; and it appears 
that an attack of illness, which detained Paul in their country, gave 
him a prolonged opportunity of laboring among them. His infirmity 
appears to have moved sympathy rather than scorn among a people 
of generous impulses. With the extravagance of their race, they 
welcomed him as an angel of God, yea, as Jesus Christ himself; they 
greeted him with those " blessings" which flow so freely from the 
Celtic tongue ; and he himself, when compelled to remonstrate with 
their truly Celtic instability, bears them witness that, " had it been 
possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given 
them to me." Nor is the Apostle's testimony less emphatic to the 
simple character of that Gospel, the same amid these pastoral Celts 
that he afterward made his sole message to the refined Corinthians — 
"Jesus Christ, evidently set forth, crucified among you" — "the cross 
of our Lord Jesus Christ," as the only object of which he would 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. m 

boast; and which proved its power among them by levelling every 
distinction between Jew and Gentile, slave and freeman. How soon 
the Judaizers removed them from him that called them to the grace 
of Christ unto another Gospel, which was not another, but an inven- 
tion of those who desired to trouble the converts and pervert the 
Gospel of Christ, we shall see presently. Meanwhile it should be 
observed that we have no mention of any central church founded in 
any of the Galatian cities, not even Ancyra, the capital, being so 
much as named. The churches of Galatia were doubtless scattered 
among the villages of that patriarchal people ; and this isolation may 
have exposed them the more readily to the attacks of the Judaizing 
perverters who systematically dogged the footsteps of Paul. 

Of the reasons for which the Apostolic band were forbidden to 
enter Bithynia or to preach the Gospel in Asia, the sacred narrative 
is silent. We might conjecture that the time was not yet come for a 
direct encounter with the powerful governments and corrupt society 
of those provinces. But it is of more profit to observe the fact that 
their path, thus hedged up on the right and the left, was guided to 
the spot, where it was revealed that they had been thus brought down 
to the extremity of Asia in order to carry over the Gospel into 
Europe. Nearly four centuries had passed since the Macedonian 
conqueror crossed the narrow strait of the Hellespont to overthrow 
the great despotism that enthralled Asia, and now, near that plain of 
Troy on which Alexander stayed to indulge the dream of rivalling 
the fame of his ancestor Achilles, at the very city named in the 
conqueror's honor, St. Paul beheld in vision another "man of Mace- 
donia," uttering the cry of the western world suffering beneath the 
despotism of sin, and calling to the soldiers of the cross, " Come over 
and help us." The power which had led Europe to the armed con- 
quest of Asia was the first to invite conquest from the spiritual force 
of which Asia had been the primeval cradle. Not a doubt could 
enter the Apostle's mind about the nature of the " help n he was 
called to give ; and so Luke, speaking now in the first person, as 
having here joined Paul and Timothy and Silas, says, " Immedi- 
ately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that 
the Lord had called us to preach the Gospel unto them." It is, 
perhaps, not too arbitrary a conjecture, that the Apostle, having 
recently suffered in health, derived benefit from the medical skill of 
the " beloved physician." 

k-i Embarking in a ship bound for Europe, they made in 

two days the voyage which usually occupied five days, and 



m 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




SMYRNA. 



landing at Neapolis, on the Stryrnonic Gulf, they took the great 
Roman road to Philippi, which was the chief city of Eastern Mace- 
donia, Thessalonica being the capital of the province. 

As being more a military than a commercial city, it was not likely 
to have many Jewish residents ; and, instead of a synagogue, the Jews 
only possessed an oratory (^pocrfv^) outside the city, by the side of 
one of the rivulets which gave the place its ancient name of " the 
Springs." Such a locality, too, would suit the itinerant traders, who 
came with their mules to the market outside the city (for they were 
not allowed to pass the walls) to carry to the Thracian clans of Pan- 
gaeus and Hsemus the dyed stuffs which were imported from Asia 
Minor ; and to supply their wants an establishment had been formed 
by " a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of 
Thyatira." She was a Jewish proselyte, and was wont to resort with 
other women to the oratory. To this humble congregation, Paul and 
his companions, going out of the city on the Sabbath day, made 
known the Gospel for the first time in Europe, with a result equally 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. 773 

remarkable for the absence of all ostentation : — " The Lord opened the 
heart of Lydia, that she attended unto the things which were spoken 
of Paul." By her baptism, with her household, Lydia gave the first 
recorded example of that great character which Christianity shares 
with Judaism, as a family religion; and she followed it up with the 
first great example of Christian hospitality, constraining the Apostolic 
band to become her guests during their stay in Philippi. 

This quiet beginning was succeeded by an open conflict, which 
throws a flood of light on the real estate of heathenism at this time. 
The ancient faith in the deities of Olympus and the Capitol, long all 
but extinct throughout the Greek and Roman world, had given place 
to a mixture of philosophic scepticism and credulous superstition ; 
nor were there wanting speculators, who made gain of the desire to 
pry into the future by the arts of divination. These pretensions were 
doubtless generally sheer imposture; but unless we would charge 
back a similar imposture upon Paul himself, we must take his solemn 
adjuration to imply the reality of demoniacal possession in the case 
before us. But it must be carefully observed that the question, 
whether a soul intellectually and morally abandoned to disorder was 
suffered to fall under the power of a personal evil spirit, is quite dis- 
tinct from the claims of supernatural knowledge and prophecy of 
which the possessed were chosen as the agents. Indeed the reality 
of the possession sets in a more striking light the vileness of the 
imposture which trafficked in the worst evil that could befall 
humanity. In short, the Apostle was now encountered at once by 
the malice of the unseen world and the cupidity of this. 

Among the seats of ancient superstition, Thrace had been conspicu- 
ous from time immemorial for the enthusiastic orgies of the Bacchic 
and Orphic worship ; and the Maenads, who scattered the limbs of 
Pentheus over Hsemus, and threw the head of Orpheus upon the 
Hebrus with the name of Eurydice still trembling on his tongue, had 
their successors in a race of " sacred slaves," who served as attendants 
upon the oracle of Dionysus on Mount Pangaeus. One of these, per- 
haps hired from the priests, or some other poor wretch possessed with 
a spirit which was supposed to inspire oracles like those uttered by 
the Pythoness at Delphi, drove a gainful trade for her masters in the 
oracles which she vended, probably to the wild natives who fre- 
quented the market outside the city walls. As Paul and his com- 
panions went out to the place of prayer, the slave girl followed them 
with the continued cry — " These men are servants of the Most High 
God, which shew unto us the way of salvation." Some suppose that 



774 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

her cries were a scornful mimicry of the proclamation of the Gospel 
by Paul himself. At all events we may be sure that they were 
uttered in the same spirit as that of the devils who confessed Christ, 
and whom he suffered not to speak. Thus also Paul, after the scene 
had been repeated for many days, with his patience exhausted, turned 
round and proved the truth of her confession by bidding the spirit 
in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her : and it came out the 
same hour. 

Enraged at the destruction of their "property," and supported 
doubtless by a tumultuous mob of those who were wont to receive 
the oracles, the masters of the slave-girl seized Paul and Silas, and 
dragged them before the local magistrates, the duumviri — or prcetors, 
as the judges of a colonia preferred to be called — sitting in the forum. 
Well aware that they had no claim for the loss incurred through the 
Apostle's exorcism, they preferred the charge — to which the responsi- 
bility of local magistrates was peculiarly sensitive — that these Jews 
raised a tumult in the city, and taught customs unlawful for Romans 
to adopt. The clamor of the multitude stood in place of evidence 
and deliberation ; and the alarmed magistrates, with a haste probably 
usual in their dealings with the wild frequenters of the outer market, 
tore off the prisoners' clothes, and ordered them to be beaten with 
rods. Then, bleeding from a Roman scourging of unusual severity, 
they were delivered to the jailer with a charge to keep them safe ; 
and the brutal officer thrust them into the inner prison, a dungeon of 
which the Tullianum at Rome may give us some idea, adding the 
torture of making their feet fast in the stocks. Over this " suffering, 
and shameful treatment," which Paul afterward recalls as inflicted 
upon him at Philippi, the spirit of Christian fortitude arose to cheer- 
fulness. The midnight silence of the prison, usually disturbed only 
by groans and curses, was this night broken by the loud hymns in 
which Paul and Silas uttered their prayers and praises to God ; and 
the prisoners were listening to the sound, when a great earthquake 
shook the very foundations of the prison, all the doors suddenly flew 
open, and all bonds were loosed. 

Roused from his sleep, and seeing the open doors, the jailer thought 
the prisoners had escaped, and drew his sword to kill kimself, when 
Paul cried to him with a loud voice, " Do thyself no harm : for we 
are all here." Calling for a light, he sprang into the dungeon, and 
in a state of overwhelming awe he fell down at the feet of Paul and 
Silas, and as soon as he had brought them out, put the question, 
" Sirs, what must I do to be saved ? " The trembling eagerness of 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. 775 

the inquirer, and the nature of the reply, concur with the spiritual 
instinct which has so often since repeated the same words, to prove 
that they were uttered in no sense short of the alarm of an awakened 
sinner for the safety of his soul ; and the answer has ever since formed 
the brief but complete summary of the Gospel, — "Believe in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved : " — nor let it be 
forgotten that this, perhaps the most pointed of all the proclamations 
of the way of salvation, adds the words which extend the blessing 
to the family of the believer — " and thy house.'' Not, however, 
that this simple phrase was to operate like some magic formula, or to 
be accepted as the shibboleth of a faith. It was but the text of a 
fuller exposition of Christian truth, by which both the jailer and his 
family were led to saving faith ; for " they spake unto him the word 
of God, and to all those in his house;" and with this agrees the ensu- 
ing record of their common baptism and their common faith. The 
change that had come over the spirit of the jailer was attested by the 
tender care with which he washed the prisoners' stripes, brought them 
into his own house, and set food before them. 

Whether the magistrates were terrified by the earthquake, or 
ashamed of their hasty violence, or simply indifferent to the injustice 
by which they had appeased the tumult, they thought to end the 
matter by the order, sent to the prison by the lictors, as soon as it 
was day, " Let those men go." With joyful haste the jailer told the 
order to Paul and Silas, and bade them go in peace. But the great 
preacher of righteousness felt it his duty to vindicate the rights that 
had been outraged in his person and his companions, who seems, like 
himself, to have been a Roman citizen. Cicero had long since pro- 
claimed the magic charm of that appeal, Civis Romanus sum, which 
many in the uttermost parts of the earth had found their help and 
their salvation, even among barbarians ; and the same great voice had 
declared the maxim which has passed into a proverb : — " To bind a 
Roman citizen is an outrage, to scourge him is a crime." But to this 
had been added the extremes of indignity and injustice : — " They have 
beaten us openly, uncondemned " — said Paul — " being Romans, and 
have cast us into prison, and now do they thrust us out privily ? 
Nay, verily ; but let them come themselves and fetch us out." These 
are not the words of bravado and self-importance ; but, the first time 
that the Apostle came into contact with the Roman government, he 
set the great example of Christian political principle, by vindicating 
the Roman constitution, and teaching magistrates their responsibility. 
They, terrified by the message brought back by the lictors — for Clau- 



T76 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



dius "watched vigilantly over the administration of the provinces — 
came to the prison to entreat Paul and Silas to be satisfied and to de- 
part from the city. 

Having first returned to the house of Lydia, and exhorted the 
brethren, Paul and Silas went on their way through Macedonia, leav- 
ing Luke, and apparently Timothy also, to build up the newly- 
founded church, with the aid doubtless of presbyters, and of those 
Christian women, the original companions of Lydia at the oratory, 
whose labors with, him in the Gospel Paul records in his Epistle to 
the church. In that Epistle too we have proofs of the tender affec- 
tion and generous feeling which bound together Paul and his Phi- 
lippian converts, from this day to his imprisonment at Rome. 
Addressed by him as " my brethren, dearly beloved, and longed for," 

the cause of thankfulness to God at 
every remembrance of them, they 
gave practical proofs of their attach- 
ment by sending aid to him more 
than once as early as his residence 
at Thessalonica, following him with 
it when he left Macedonia, and by 
their continued fellowship in the 
Gospel and their aid to Paul in its 
defence and confirmation, down to 
the time of his imprisonment, giving 
him full confidence that " He who 
had begun the good work in them 
would perform it to the day of Jesus 
Christ." 

Nor must we omit to notice the 
manifest order of progression in the 
cases of conversion recorded in this memorable chapter of the Acts. 
Timothy, the gentle son of a godly mother, is insensibly trained to 
piety by early instruction in the Scriptures. Lydia, the devout prose- 
lyte, no sooner hears the truth from the lips of Paul, than her heart 
is opened to receive it. The jailer of Philippi, an ignorant and hard- 
hearted heathen, struck by the terror of sudden conviction, utters the 
agonizing cry, What must I do to be saved? But all are united at 
Philippi in the fellowship of one faith and baptism. 

Passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, scenes which 

would recall to the mind of Paul some of the most famous 

events of Grecian history, and crossing the base of the Chalcidic 




ST. PAUL IN THE STOCKS AT 
PHILIPPI. 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. m 

peninsula, the Apostle arrived with Silas at Thessalonica, at the 
head of the Thermaic Gulf. Lying directly in their route, as the 
chief station on the Egnatian road, and not only important as the 
Roman capital of Macedonia, but as a commercial city second only to 
Athens and Corinth, Thessalonica was further suited to be a centre 
of Christianity by possessing a synagogue of the Jews, who were 
attracted to it by its trade. Paul, according to his custom, went into 
the synagogue on three successive Sabbaths, and reasoned with the 
Jews out of the Scriptures ; the substance of his argument being the 
same as that of the Lord himself on the way to Emmaus, u that Christ 
must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead ; and that 
this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ." His preaching made 
numerous converts among the Greek proselytes, and among the women 
of high station. This success, as at Antioch in Pisidia, roused the 
envy of the unbelieving Jews, who easily raised a tumult among the 
vagabonds and idlers in the market of this great port. The mob 
attacked the house of Jason (probably a Hellenist, with whom Paul 
and Silas were staying), intending to bring them forth to the ven- 
geance of the people ; but, not finding them there, they dragged Jason 
and certain brethren before the politarchs, for such was the title of the 
magistrates of Thessalonica, which ranked as a free city (libera civitas), 
but not a colony. To the general outcry, that Jason had received 
" these men who have come hither also, turning the world upside 
down " — and well it needed such a restoration of the order which sin 
had long since inverted — they added the specific charge which so 
strongly appealed to the fears of a Roman magistrate: — "And all 
these do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another 
king, Jesus." Though sharing in the general agitation, the magis- 
trates did not, like the praetors of Philippi, forget their judicial char- 
acter. They were content to take security of Jason and the rest ; and 
the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night to Beroea. 
The length of Paul's stay at Thessalonica is indicated by the fact 
already noticed, that the Philippians sent twice to relieve his neces- 
sities. 

The two Epistles to the Thessalonians, which were written very soon 
after the Apostle's visit, add most important particulars of his work 
in founding that church. He speaks to the Thessalonian Christians 
as being mostly Gentiles; and reminds them that they had turned 
from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son 
from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, "Jesus who delivers us 
from the coming wrath." 



778 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Bercea, whither Paul and Silas retreated from Thessalonica, ap- 
pears also to have had a large number of Jews, who proved them- 
selves to be of a nobler spirit than those of Thessalonica, by that con- 
duct which has made them ever since a pattern of honest and earnest 
religious inquiry, the very course which Christ had in vain urged 
upon his hearers at Jerusalem. Paul and Silas went into their syna- 
gogue ; and often as the Apostle's ministry had been thus opened, 
often as he had reasoned out of the Scriptures concerning Christ, this 
is the first time that we find his Jewish hearers calmly testing the 
truth of his teaching, — " They received the word with all readiness 
of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were 
so. Therefore" — as the natural consequence — "many of them be- 
lieved/' with not a few Greeks, among whom we again find women 
of distinction. This the Thessalonian Jews no sooner heard, than 
they completed the parallel to those of the Pisidian Antioch by pur- 
suing the Apostles to Beroea, and stirring up the people ; and a tumult 
was only avoided by Paul's departure for the coast, probably at Dium, 
whence he set sail for Athens. The haste and secrecy of the move- 
ment is seen in his leaving behind Silas and Timothy (who had re- 
joined him either at Thessalonica or Beroea), and sending back word 
to them, by the brethren who had escorted him to Athens, to join him 
with all speed. We can hardly fail to see that the Apostle was urged 
on to the great work now before him by a Providence that overruled 
his plans ; for he tells the Thessalonians that once and again, when he 
desired to revisit them, Satan hindered him : but Satan little knew 
the blow he aimed at his own kingdom, when his persecution drove 
Paul to Athens. 

That the Apostle had no deliberate purpose of going to Athens 
seems clear from the statement that the brethren at Bercea sent him 
away to go to the sea ; and then his conductors, guided no doubt by cir- 
cumstances, such as what vessels happened to be sailing, brought him 
to Athens. The distinctive divine call which appointed him the 
Apostle of the Gentiles, is made all the clearer from the slowness, not 
to say reluctance, with which he is urged on from Jerusalem to Cilicia 
and Syria, from Asia Minor to Europe, from the Jewish settlements 
in Macedonia to Athens and Corinth, as if the voice were repeated at 
every step, "Depart ! for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." 
Paul was no rash adventurer, rushing forward in his own strength to 
the conflict with the Greek philosophy and Roman force. 

Even when he found himself at Athens, Paul showed no 
haste to enter upon the work, but waited till he should be 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. 779 

joined by Silas and Timotheus. There was nothing outwardly to 
distinguish him from any other Hellenistic Jew, as — to use his own 
description of his occupation — he " walked through the city, and con- 
templated the objects of worship," with a spirit, taste and knowledge 
to appreciate those glorious works of Phidias and his. successors, whose 
mutilated fragments we cherish as the choicest of our art treasures. 
But here, too, what things were gain to him he counted loss for Christ. 
Before we give a moment's place to the thought that the Apostle dis- 
paraged the excellence of art, let us remember that the forms, which 
to us have lost their profane meaning with their pristine beauty, had 
then that beauty prostituted to the most degrading use. The very 
perfection of the art thus perverted would add to the keenness of Paul's 
indignation at seeing such a city given to idolatry. He could refrain 
no longer; and so, in addition to his usual discussions in the syna- 
gogue with the Jews and proselytes, he began to discourse every 
day in the Agora (the market-place) with all who frequented that 
public resort, like Socrates on the same spot five centuries before. 
The mutations which had brought down the city of Pericles from her 
political and martial glory had made no essential change in the char- 
acter of the Athenian people. They were still the lively, keen-witted, 
impressible Demus, using the leisure of ancient freemen, to whom 
work was a degradation, in the open-air life of the Agora, lounging 
there in body, but in mind restlessly active and eager after every 
novelty : " For all the Athenians and strangers which were there 
spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some 
new thing." 

Here at length the utmost efforts of the highest human intellect, in 
search of that philosophy in the light of which man was to live and 
to die, were placed in direct contrast with the truths revealed by God 
to the chosen people. The Apostle proclaimed Jesus and the Resur- 
rection as the means of conferring that spiritual life which the philoso- 
phers had given up in despair, taking refuge in the two great theories 
of the Porch and the Garden, — the triumph over the accidents of life 
by a proud independence, or the fruition of its blessings by using them 
before they perish. The philosophers of both schools encountered 
Paul with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. The Epicurean, 
teaching himself to seek for tranquil enjoyment as the chief object of 
life, heard of One claiming to be the Lord of men, who had shown 
them the glory of dying to self, and had promised to those who fought 
the good fight bravely a nobler bliss than the comforts of life could 
yield. The Stoic, cultivating a stern and isolated moral independence, 



780 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



heard of One whose own righteousness was proved by submission to 
the Father in heaven, and who had promised to give his righteousness 
to those who trusted not in themselves, but in him. To all, the an- 
nouncement of a Person was much stranger than the publishing of 
any theories would have been. They would not concede to such a 
teacher the rank of a philosopher ; but, while some despised him as a 
mere babbler (a sower of words), others confounded him with the in- 
troducers of foreign superstitions and strange deities. The fact that 
the first count in the indictment of Socrates was his not believing in 
the gods in whom the city believed, and introducing other new deities, 
has offered a coincidence too inviting to be neglected ; and it has been 
supposed by some that St. Paul was arraigned on a similar charge 
before the court of Areopagus. But the narrative of St. Luke does 
not give any indication of a judicial process ; and it seems clear that 
"they took him and brought him to the Hill of Ares " with the sim- 
ple object expressed in their own words, " We wish to learn what 
these things mean." The result of Paul's contemptuous reception by 
the philosophers was that, instead of wasting his time in fruitless 
discussions with them in the Agora, he obtained a public audience of 
the people for the Gospel message. 

No locality of St. Paul's ministry is more deeply interesting or 
better known than this. The Agora of Athens lay in the deep valley 
enclosed between the Hill of the Muses (Museum) on the south, and 
the Pnyx, Areopagus and Acropolis, which curve round it on the 
north. The Areopagus directly overhangs the north side of the Agora ; 
and a flight of sixteen steps, cut in the rock, leads up to the south- 
eastern summit of the rock, where the most venerable court held its 
sessions in the open air. At the head of the staircase is a rock-hewn 
bench, forming three sides of a quadrangle ; with two raised blocks, 
— the one on the eastern, the other on the western side, — the stations 
probably of the accuser and the accused. We may imagine the Apos- 
tle led up these steps and placed on one of the stones, whence, as from 
a pulpit, he might address the philosophers and distinguished persons 
who occupied the benches of the Areopagites, and the multitude on 
the steps and in the valley. Here, directly opposite to the great gate- 
way (Propylcea) of the Acropolis, and the western front of the Parthe- 
non, — at a time, be it remembered, when the Panathenaic procession 
was still wont to carry up to the Virgin goddess her mystic robe, 
while the thousand altars of the city smoked daily with the offerings 
of all the world, — a Jew for the first time taught the people of 
Athens, and the foreigners who flocked to the University of the 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. 



781 




THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS, AS IT WAS. 

World, what their own religion testified of the true God — though 
darkened and dishonored by idolatry— and thence led them up to the 
full knowledge of Him whom they ignorantly worshipped. 

This "Sermon at Athens" — as it is commonly called — presents a 
new type of the Apostle's discourses, and an example of the fittest 
mode of approaching the minds and hearts of heathens in every age. 
Addressing an audience of cultivated Greeks, he no more insulted 
them by saying at the outset — " Ye are too superstitious," than he 
belied their conscience and philosophy by declaring them utterly igno- 
rant of God. His real exordium was, "Athenians, I observe you to 
be in all things eminently religious" As an example of that tendency, 
which formed one chief spring of Hellenic vigor, to trace in every- 
thing the hand of God, he singles out, from all those temples and 
shrines which he had been contemplating for several days, an altar 
which bore the inscription TO GOD UNKNOWN. Whether set 
up in a spirit like that of the ecclesiastical calendar, with its supple- 
mental day for "All Saints," or whether connected with the esoteric 
worship of the mysteries, or whether meant to expiate some calamity 
for which all the known gods had been propitiated in vain, as tradi- 
tion says of one of these altars (for we know from eye-witnesses that 
there were several of them at Athens), the inscription confessed a 
truth to which Greek poetry and philosophy, nay, the whole voice of 
heathenism, bears continual witness. Beneath the veil of polytheism, 
we always find some idea of a God who is above all the deities of the 
Pantheon, from whom gods, men, and nature alike derive their being. 
The Apostle, therefore, had the fullest right to use that inscription as 



782 . HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the foreshadowing of the truths he had now to proclaim — " Whom 
therefore ye worship without knowing, Him declare I unto you." 
The simple grandeur of this revelation stood in marked contrast to 
the vain speculations of the philosophers, and re-echoed the primal 
truth set forth "in the beginning" of both covenants: — "God, that 
made the world, and all things that are therein " — " the Lord of heaven 
and earth " — " HE giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ; and 
hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face 
of the earth ; " — while, in harmony with the key-note of the whole 
discourse, he appeals to their own poets, who had already borne wit- 
ness to this truth, " For we are also his offspring." 

Nothing, however, could be more alien to the Apostle's argument 
than the inference that it mattered not how men worshipped this 

"Father of all, in every age, 
In every clime adored," 

and that every form of service under every name was equally accepta- 
ble, whether 

" By saint, by savage, or by sage, 
Jehovah. Jove, or Lord." 

From the universal fatherhood of God, Paul deduces the folly of 
idolatry, as a degradation of that nature which man derives from God. 
If we are his offspring, made in his likeness, surely "we ought not to 
think that the Godhead (r6 eriov) is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, 
on which a form is stamped by man's art or imagination." As for 
his dwelling-place, Paul dared to repeat the same truth, as he stood 
facing the Parthenon, which Solomon had proclaimed when he dedi- 
cated the Temple, that the Creator of the world, the Lord of heaven 
and earth, " dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is he 
served by men's hands as though he (the giver of all) needed anything 
to be added to him." This ignorant worship belongs to the dispensa- 
tion of his forbearance, during which the vague efforts of the heathen 
world — "feeling after God, if haply they might find him, though he 
is not far from any one of us, for in him we live, and move, and have 
our being" — taught them the same lesson of their helplessness that 
the Law was designed to teach the Jews. But now the time of that 
forbearance is accomplished, and Paul amid the temples of Athens 
repeats to all the world the cry of the Baptist in the wilderness of 
Judsea — "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." To en- 
force repentance, he declares that a day is appointed by God for the 
judgment of the world in righteousness — an idea not stange to Greek 
mythology ; and thus he leads up their minds to the very essence of 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. T83 

his message, — that this judgment would be administered by a man 
whom God had set apart, giving to all men a pledge that he had done 
so, by raising him from the dead. 

But here the patience of his audience failed. With his wonted 
consummate prudence, Paul has not yet named the name against which 
rumors from the East had already prejudiced his hearers, — the Gali- 
lean peasant, who was, forsooth, to be exalted above Socrates and 
Plato, Zeno and Epicurus — Christ crucified, folly to the Greeks. But 
the mention of a resurrection was enough to provoke the scorn of the 
philosophers; and all revolted from the claim of personal allegiance 
to a man appointed to exercise the authority of the one God in the 
judgment of the world. Some mocked — a mode of debate in which 
the Athenians of all ages were adepts — others thought they had had 
enough of the subject for the time, and promised Paul another audi- 
ence, which he never seems to have had, and so he departed from 
among them. The intellectual capital of the world w r as not marked 
for distinction in the annals of Christianity. No Epistle or visit 
records any further intercourse of Paul with Athens. But even here 
a few converts were gained ; some of them, as elsewhere, among the 
most intelligent men and the women of distinction ; classes represented 
by Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris. These 
believers, if few in number, were firmly attached to the Apostle. The 
narrative leaves it uncertain how long Paul stayed at Athens, and 
whether some persecution or danger did not cause him to depart with- 
out waiting for Silas and Timothy, who rejoined him at Corinth. 

Corinth, which now ranked as the Roman capital of 

A D 52 . 

Greece, is conspicuous not only in Europe, but above every 
other city in the world — Jerusalem and Antioch scarcely excepted — 
in connection with the history and teaching and writings of St. Paul. 
It claims this distinction as the residence of the Apostle during his 
most critical contests, both with Jews and Greeks, in defence of the 
very essence of the Gospel ; as the place whence he wrote his first 
apostolic letters — the two Epistles to the Thessalonians ; as the Church 
to w r hich he addressed those other two Epistles, which not only con- 
tain the fullest directions on matters of Christian faith and practice — 
the order of the Church, and the principles regulating her spiritual 
gifts and her Christian liberality, her ministry and her sacraments, the 
supreme law of Christian love, and the clearest statement of the doc- 
trine of the resurrection, — but which reiterate, in terms unequalled in 
human language, for simplicity and force, the one great central truth 
of the whole Gospel — Jesus Christ and him crucified. 



T84 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

There is, moreover, no scene of St. Paul's labors of which the local 
features are more clearly marked by allusions both in the Acts and 
the Epistles ; and the course of the city's history will help to explain 
its choice to be the first chief home of Western Christianity. This 
ancient seat of the iEolian, and afterward of the Dorian race, stood 
just within that Isthmus or neck of land, the name of which has been 
transferred to every narrow passage between two seas ; and this p>osi- 
tion enabled it to shut the only land route into the Poloponnesus, and 
to send forth its ships on both the seas which wash the eastern and 
western shores of Greece. Its command of the Isthmus was rendered 
perfect by that vast citadel of rock, the Acrocorinihus, which rises ab- 
ruptly to a height of 2000 feet above the level of the sea, and the 
summit of which is so large as to have contained the original city, the 
Ephyra of Homer. The prospect from this eminence is one of the 
most celebrated in the world, embracing a panoramic view of the 
mountains of the Morea and the Corinthian Gulf, with the ranges 
that skirt its opposite shore, terminating in the snowy heights of Par- 
nassus ; while on the east, beyond the Saronic Gulf, dotted with its 
islands, the hills of Attica and the Acropolis of Athens are distinctly 
visible at a distance of forty-five miles. Immediately below the Acro- 
corinthus, to the north, was the city of Corinth, on a table-land de- 
scending in terraces to the low plain which lies between Cenchrea 
and Leehaeum, the two harbors on the Saronic and Corinthian gulfs. 
The eastern port invited the civilizing commerce of the Phoenicians, 
and from the western issued those earliest of Greek colonies, which 
the Corinthians founded on the Ionian Gulf, such as Ambracia, Cor- 
cyra (Corfu), and Apollonia; while Potidseaand other cities>attest her 
colonizing energy in the iEgsean. The first trireme, or model Greek 
man-of-war, was said to have been built at Corinth, and the first naval 
battle on record was fought between her fleet and that of her own 
colony of Corcyra (about B. c. 664). The mythic fame of the JEolid 
race of Sisyphus was eclipsed in historic times by the tyrants Cypselus 
and Periander, under whom Corinth, enriched by commerce, became 
one of the earliest seats of Grecian art. As an aristocratic republic, 
Corinth yielded only to Sparta the supremacy of the Dorian confede- 
racy, and was often able to force on her hesitating leader — as, for ex- 
ample, into the Peloponnesian war. The Macedonian usurpers, after 
crushing the opposition of Athens, Thebes, and Sparta, treated Cor- 
inth, in whose citadel they placed a garrison, as the capital of Greece; 
and when Aratus had expelled the Macedonian garrison, the city be- 
came the head of the Achsean League (b. c. 243). In this character 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. • T85 

she drew down, by an insult to the ambassadors of Rome, that terrible 
destruction which Cicero describes as the extinction of the '■' Light of 
Greece" (b. c. 146). Excepting the temples and the buildings on the 
Acrocorinthus, the city lay in ruins for a century, till it was rebuilt 
by Julius Caesar in B. c. 46, and the new Colonnia Julia Corinthus was 
made the capital of the Roman province of Achaia and the residence 
of the proconsul. Rapidly recovering its ancient wealth, as a place 
of great commercial and manufacturing enterprise, it regained also its 
infamous celebrity as the most dissolute of Greek cities, and a chief 
seat of the worship of Aphrodite ; while at the same time it was second 
only to Athens in intellectual activity. 

Besides the native Greeks, the great number of Romans, as might 
have been expected in a colony so recently sent forth, is attested by 
the Latin names in the Epistle to the Romans, which St. Paul wrote 
from Corinth, during his second visit. The many Jewish residents, 
whom we always find in the Greek commercial cities, are indicated 
both by the narrative in the Acts, and by the Judaizing factions con- 
stantly referred to in the Epistles. Here then were gathered together 
all the elements on which the Apostle could most desire to act ; and 
all of them in a state of vital activity, which formed a striking con- 
trast to the "strenuous idleness" of Athens amid her old intellectual 
traditions. It was in places of living activity that St. Paul labored 
longest and most effectually, as formerly at Antioch, now at Corinth, 
and afterward at Ephesus. 

While at Corinth, as before at Athens, Paul was waiting for the 
arrival of Silas and Timotheus, he gained unexpected fellow-laborers 
in Aquila, a Jew of Pontus, and his wife Priscilla, who had lately 
arrived from Italy, in consequence of the edict of Claudius, expelling 
all Jews from Rome. Finding them already established at Corinth 
in the same handicraft as his own — the making of Cilician or hair- 
cloth tents 1 — Paul took up his abode and wrought with them, and we 
may imagine his converse during the hours of labor with these who 
soon became, to use his own affectionate phrase, " his helpers in Christ 
Jesus." Having thus lived together during the eighteen months of 
Paul's stay at Corinth, they shared his voyage to Ephesus. Here 
they remained (while Paul went on to Jerusalem and Antioch) and 
instructed Apollos in the truth. Besides this intimate converse both 
with Paul and with Apollos, Aquila and Priscilla have the high dis- 
tinction of affording a home to Christian churches in their house at 
Ephesus, and again at Rome when they were able to return thither. 
To crown their eminence, they earned the thanks, not of Paul only, 
50 



786 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

but of all the churches of the Gentiles, by incurring the risk of mar- 
tyrdom to save his life ; we know not upon what occasion ; perhaps it 
was at Ephesus. 

The labors of the Apostle at his craft of tent-making, with Aquila 
and Priscilla, are the most interesting if we admit the supposition 
that this was the period of pressing want, from which he was relieved 
by the arrival of "the brethren" (Silas and Timotheus) from Mace- 
donia with contributions, especially those of the Philippians. This 
seasonable contribution aided him in his resolve to keep himself from 
being burdensome to the converts whom he was now about to gather 
from the Gentiles. It was not the proud assertion of personal inde- 
pendence that dictated this course ; but reasons peculiar to his position 
among the corrupt Greeks of Corinth and Achaia. Nowhere does he 
insist so forcibly, as in writing to this very church, on the law that 
" no man goeth a warfare on his own charges " — that " the ox that 
treadeth out the corn must not be muzzled " — that " so hath the Lord 
ordained, that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gos- 
pel." He tells them plainly that his refraining from using this power 
was the only disadvantage they had in comparison with other 
churches ; nay, with his fondness for bold expressions, he says, " I 
spoiled other churches, taking wages of them for my ministry among 
you." It is in no spirit of sarcastic irony that he pleads — " forgive me 
this wrong " — for he calls God to witness that no want of love to 
them dictated this course, the motive for which he plainly adds : — 
" For what I do, I also will do, that I may cut off occasion from them 
that desire occasion [and challenge them to this proof] — wherein they 
boast, let them be found like us." He foresaw that, among the in- 
numerable pretenders who, in that rich and frivolous province, made 
a gain 01 religion, there would soon arise some to abuse the Christian 
name ; those whom he afterward branded as " false apostles, deceitful 
workers, transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ," even 
as Satan, whose ministers they were, transformed himself into an angel 
of light. These men even boasted of the contributions they exacted, 
as a proof of their superiority to the Apostle who would receive none. 
But he was content to suffer this apparent humiliation, and to take 
this for his sole reward — " That, when I preach the Gospel, I may 
make the Gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power 
in the Gospel." "Nevertheless, we have not used this power; but 
suffer all things, lest we should hinder the Gospel of Christ." He re- 
solved not to bring upon the Gospel the scorn of the selfish and quick- 
witted Greeks, not to sacrifice one iota of the witness which they were 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. T8T 

compelled to bear to his asseveration — " I seek not yours but you " — 
"As the truth of Christ is in me," so vehemently does he asseverate, 
— no man shall stop me of this boasting in all the region of Achaia. 

With such resolves, from his very first arrival at Corinth, did Paul 
work daily with Aquila and Priscilla. But, when the rest of the 
Sabbath came round, he went into the synagogue, according to his 
custom, and labored to persuade both the Jews and the Greeks who 
happened to be present. Some weeks passed thus, till the arrival of 
Silas and Timothy from Macedonia not only gave a new impulse to 
the Apostle, but marked a crisis in his career. Our abiding sense of 
the devotedness of St. Paul makes it hard to realize that he also was 
subject to fits of energy and depression, the latter being connected (it 
would seem) with that bodily infirmity, the " thorn in the flesh," 
which buffeted him as a messenger of Satan. He tells the Corinth- 
ians that "he was with them in weakness, and fear, and much 
trembling ;" and his adversaries were able, after his departure, to 
strike at his influence with the taunt : — " His letters are weighty and 
powerful ; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contempti- 
ble." But this constraint, in whatever it consisted, was now swallowed 
up in that " constraint of the word " — that overwhelming pressure of 
heart and conscience, binding his whole nature to his work amid all 
his infirmities, which St. Luke expresses by the very word used by 
the Lord himself — " I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how 
am I straitened till it be accomplished," — which Paul himself de- 
scribes in the most powerful language ever used by man to utter 
human motives : — " For the love of Christ constraineth us; because 
we thus judge, that, if One died for all, then were all dead ; and that 
he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto 
themselves, but unto him w T hich died for them, and rose again." 
This overwhelming sense thai " Christ is all and in all," this full 
meaning of the Gospel of Christ's death and resurrection, seems to 
have come upon Paul's mind almost with the force of a new revela- 
tion, in the light of which he formed the resolution : — " I determined 
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him 
crucified." It had an equal influence on the manner as on the 
matter of his preaching. Paul knew that " Christ had sent him to 
preach the Gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the woss of Christ 
should be made of none effect." All the arts of rhetoric and philoso- 
phic argument, the " excellency of speech and wisdom," the " enticing 
words of man's wisdom," were abjured by the very Apostle who was 
qualified to use them on the very field that invited and provoked 



788 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

their display, in order to give place to the " manifestation of spirit 
and of power," to prove that the simplicity of preaching was God's 
instrument for saving them that believe, and to assure the converts 
that " their faith was not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of 
God." Great as was the temptation to gratify " the Jews who asked 
for a sign, and the Greeks who sought after wisdom," Paul now saw 
that any such concession would mar the whole simplicity of the 
Gospel, and he summed up the message of Christ's heralds in these 
words : — " But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a 
stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them 
which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of 
God, and the wisdom of God." 

" We " — the Apostles and Evangelists then — the ministers of the 
Gospel in every age — but, at Corinth in particular, Paul and the two 
associates whose aid he thus owns : — " The Son of God, even Jesus 
Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and 
Timotheus, was in him yea and in him Amen, unto the glory of God 
by us." The sense of having their help seems to have given that 
impulse which caused Paul to testify first to the Jews Jesus the 
Christ. His new plainness provoked the same animosity as at every 
former step ; and when, like those at Antioch in Pisidia, they opposed 
themselves and blasphemed, Paul shook his raiment, and said to 
them, in the words of their own prophet, " Your blood be upon your 
own heads ! Pure from it, I will henceforth go to the Gentiles." 
From that day he forsook the synagogue, his first act of open separa- 
tion from Judaism, but continued to meet his own flock close by, in 
the house of a proselyte named Justus. He was followed by Crispus, 
the chief ruler of the synagogue, whose baptism, with his w T hole 
house, by the Apostle himself, formed an exception to Paul's usual 
practice, for " Christ " — he says — " sqpt me not to baptize, but to 
preach the Gospel." The like exception was made in favor of Gaius, 
whose name stands recorded in Scripture as a great example of Chris- 
tian hospitality ; as w r ell as for the household of Stephanas, afterward 
described as " the first-fruits of Achaia, who had devoted themselves 
to the ministry of the saints." 

The news of this division among the Jews, and of the Apostle's 
turning to the Gentiles, spread through the city ; and many of the 
Corinthians believed and were baptized, probably by Silvanus and 
Timotheus. That this movement roused anew the extreme fury of 
the Jews, may be inferred from Paul's referring to their opposition 
with vehement indignation in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians, 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. 189 

which was written from Corinth soon after the arrival of Silvanus 
and Timotheus : — " Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own 
prophets, and have persecuted us ; and they please not God, and are 
contrary to all men : forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they 
might be saved, to fill up their sins alway ; for the wrath is come 
upon them to the uttermost." It was at this crisis that the Apostle 
was favored with another of those supernatural visions, which from 
the very day of his conversion had directed and cheered his course. 
The Lord, whom he had seen in the way to Damascus, now spoke to 
him in the night, and said to him, " Be not afraid, but speak, and 
hold not thy peace : for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee 
to hurt thee : for / have much people in this city." Thus encouraged, 
he remained in Corinth, teaching the word of God, for a year and 
six months. During this time he kept up his intercourse with the 
churches of Macedonia ; and the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians 
was sent not long after the First, chiefly to correct the misapprehen- 
sions which some had founded upon the First, respecting the speedy 
approach of " the day of the Lord," Christ's second advent. 

These are the earliest of St. Paul's Epistles which have come down 
to us ; though the salutation at the close of the Second Epistle seems 
to imply that the Apostle was already in habitual correspondence 
with the churches he had planted. That salutation, moreover, sup- 
plies a fact of the greatest importance in connection with St. Paul's 
Epistles : — " The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the 
token in every Epistle: so I write." The habit of employing an 
amanuensis is so frequent that we need not speculate whether St. 
Paul adopted it on account of his " infirmity in the flesh." He used 
his own hand, partly to give that attestation to the genuineness of his 
Epistles which we find already not to have been superfluous, partly 
to convey that sense of personal regard which we associate with a 
great man's autograph ; and sometimes he adds to the salutation in 
his own hand statements to which he desires thus to give the greatest 
emphasis. We can scarcely doubt that the magnificent doxology 
which follows the salutation in the Epistle to the Romans was of this 
kind ; and Paul has given us an example beyond all doubt in the 
close of the Epistle to the Galatians. After dictating his unusually 
severe rebukes of the Judaizing teachers who had beguiled the 
unstable Gauls, he takes the pen into his own hand ; but, before he 
adds the salutation, he uses it to record the final condemnation of 
their hollow motives, and the final assertion of that doctrine of the 
cross, to which this very form of reiteration adds new emphasis. 



TOO HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Nay, more — and it is deeply interesting that such a personal trait of 
the Apostle has been preserved to us — he appeals to the large, bold 
hand-writing, so characteristic of his fervid temperament, as a proof 
of the emphasis with which he wrote : — " See in what large letters I 
have written to you with mine own hand!" It was in those large 
characters that he traced the words, " God forbid that I should glory, 
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ " — " In Christ Jesus 
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new 
creature." 

Two general remarks relating to St. Paul's Letters may find a place 
here. (1.) There is no reason to assume that the extant letters are all 
that the Apostle wrote. On the contrary, there is a strong presump- 
tion, and some slight positive evidence, that he wrote many which 
have not been preserved. (2.) We must be on our guard against con- 
cluding too much, from the contents and style of any Epistle, as to 
the fixed bent of the Apostle's whole mind at the time when it was 
written. We must remember that the Epistles to the Thessalonians 
were written while St. Paul was deeply absorbed in the peculiar 
circumstances of the Corinthian Church ; and that the Epistles to the 
Corinthians were written between those to the Galatians and the 
Romans. These facts are sufficient to remind us of the versatility of 
the Apostle's mind ; — to show us how thoroughly the feelings and 
ideas suggested to him by the circumstances upon which he was dwell- 
ing had the power to mould its utterances. 

At Corinth, as afterward at Ephesus, the residence of 
Paul gave occasion to one of those early outbreaks against 
Christianity at great seats of Greek civilization and Roman power, 
which portended future persecution. But the time had not yet come 
when the Gentiles surpassed the hostility of the Jews ; and the pre- 
sent danger was averted by the wise and fair, if somewhat contemptu- 
ous, toleration of a philosophic governor. Gallio, the proconsul of 
Achaia under Claudius, was the brother of the great Seneca, and, like 
him, imbued with learning from his infancy. When, therefore, the 
Jews brought Paul before his tribunal, on the charge of persuading 
men to worship God contrary to the law, Gallio stopped the case, just 
as Paul was opening his mouth to defend himself, declaring that he 
would be a judge of actual crimes, but not of doctrine, and names, and 
of their law. Natural indignation at this light treatment of the sacred 
Name has blinded many Christians to the excellence of Gallio's con- 
duct as a magistrate, administering the traditional tolerant policy of 
Rome. But the " careless Gallio " stands in as honorable contrast to 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. 191 

the Philippian duumvirs, as Festus does to the venal brother of Pallas. 
Even when he suffered the Corinthian spectators — whether they were 
favorable to St. Paul, or actuated only by anger against the Jews — to 
seize on Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and to beat him before 
the tribunal, Gallio's calm indifference may have saved Corinth from 
one of those frightful tumults between Greeks and Jews which de- 
solated such cities as Alexandria and Csesarea. The result of the 
tumult seems to have been favorable to the influence of Paul, who re- 
mained a good while at Corinth before he took his leave of the breth- 
ren and sailed for Syria. 

The Apostle was accompanied by Aquila and Priscilla on his de- 
parture from Cenchrea, the eastern harbor of Corinth, which lay on 
the Saronic Gulf. But before they sailed, a ceremony was performed 
which has given rise to much controversy. The impression on the 
reader's mind is that Paul himself shaved his head at Cenchrea, 
because he had a vow; but eminent commentators hold the view, 
which is at least equally consistent with the grammatical order of the 
passage, that the ceremony was performed by Aquila. In either case 
we see the Apostle — as on a subsequent occasion — sanctioning, if not 
practising, customs which proved that he was in no eager haste to cut 
himself off from conformity with his Jewish brethren in things in- 
different. The question, whether his conduct in these two cases fur- 
nishes an example to Christians in support of the practice of vows, is 
too much a matter of casuistry to be discussed here. 

The Apostle's destination was Jerusalem; but the ship in which he 
sailed followed the most common route across the ^Egsean from 
Corinth to Ephesus. " These were the capitals of the two flourishing 
and peaceful provinces of Achaia and Asia, and the two great mer- 
cantile towns on the opposite sides of the sea. If resemblances may 
be suggested between the ocean and the Mediterranean, and between 
ancient and modern times, we may say that the relation of these cities 
of the Eastern and Western Greeks to each other was like that of 
New York and Liverpool. Even the time taken up by the voyage 
constitutes a point of resemblance. Cicero says that, " on his eastward 
passage, which was considered a long one, he spent fifteen days, and 
that his return was accomplished in thirteen." Either the ship was 
bound further for Syria, or Paul found another vessel on the point of 
sailing, so that he only made a few days' stay at the city, to which we 
shall presently return, as a chief place of his abode. But in this short 
interval, and doubtless on the Sabbath, he w r ent into the synagogue, 
and reasoned with the Jews. They gave an earnest of that readiness 



G 

C 

a 

p— i 

-a 




:92 



ST. PAUL'S SECOND JOURNEY. 793 

which they soon after showed to hear the Word, by entreating Paul 
to remain some time with them ; but, bent as he was on keeping the 
approaching feast at Jerusalem, he bade them farewell, with the pro- 
mise, soon so amply redeemed, " I will return again unto you, if God 
will." It was no small consolation for his departure, that Aquila 
and Priscilla remained behind, apparently at Paul's express desire. 
Their house became the home of the infant church of Ephesus, and 
themselves the instructors of Apollos. 

Meanwhile, Paul pursued his voyage to Csesarea; and, 
landing there, went up to Jerusalem, as he had proposed. 
That his visit was but hasty, seems indicated by the brevity of the 
record : — "And when he had landed at Cassarea, and gone up and 
saluted the church, he went down to Antioch." But the Apostle's 
eagerness to pay the visit may assure us of its great importance, which 
we can understand in the light of his past and approaching career. 
His salutation to the Jewish Christians, assembled at the feast, would 
include a full account of the reception of the Gospel by the Gentiles 
in Roman colonies and Greek capitals ; and the report, while glad- 
dening the sincere believers, and confirming their faith in the full 
salvation of the Gentiles, would provoke new suspicion and hostility 
from the Judaizers. Foreseeing, we may feel sure, his great coming 
conflict with these " false brethren unawares crept in," he would 
attach more importance than ever to a full understanding and hearty 
loving union with James and the true Christians at Jerusalem. And, 
while they learned to appreciate his work, what he saw upon this 
visit would quicken his desire to cement that union by the means on 
which he ever insists, "the fellowship of giving and receiving," and 
to fulfil the old injunction with which his brother Apostles had sent 
him forth to the Gentiles : — " Only they would that we should re- 
member the poor, the same which I also was forward to do." For 
Judaea was now being ground down to those extremities which soon 
provoked the great rebellion ; and Felix, who had arrived as the 
successor of Ventidius Cumanus about midsummer, A. D. 53, had 
entered on his course of servile despotism and rapacity. 

From this visit the Apostle went forth to oppose every art by which 
the Judaizers tried to rob the Gentiles of their Christian liberty, but 
to insist no less earnestly on the duty of the Gentile converts to con- 
tribute of their wealth to their suffering Jewish brethren. The contri- 
butions made by Macedonia and Achaia for the poor of the saints in 
Jerusalem becomes a prominent object of his labors. He represents 
it as a debt due from the former to the latter : " For if the Gentiles 



?94 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also 
to minister to them in carnal things." And it was on the very service 
of carrying these contributions to Jerusalem, at the Pentecost four 
years later, that no remonstrances could deter him from risking his 
liberty and life. 

The eagerness of the Apostle, on the latter occasion, to be at Jeru- 
salem on the day of Pentecost, raises a presumption that this too 
was the "feast" which he was now so eager to keep at Jerusalem. 
(The Pentecost of A. d. 54 fell on May 31.) This festival, rather than 
the Passover, had now acquired the distinctive appellation of "the 
feast." It was that to w r hich the greatest number of the Jews went 
up, after the full ingatheriug of the harvest ; and at which, therefore, 
Paul would find the largest gathering of the brethren at Jerusalem. 
This view is supported by arguments derived from the season during 
■which navigation was suspended, and the length of the voyage from 
Ephesus to Csesarea. On this view it would be in the early summer 
of A. D. 54 that Paul returned to Antioch, for the last time, having 
completed his Second Missionary Journey. This epoch in the Apostle's 
life coincides nearly with one equally marked in civil history. It 
was on the 12th of October, A. D. 54, that the Emperor Claudius was 
murdered by his infamous consort Agrippina, and succeeded by the 
young Nero, a name equally hateful in the annals of the Church and 
of the world. 

Mr. Lew in, however, arguing chiefly from the general tenor of the 
chronological data which have been noticed in the course of the nar- 
rative, — and especially from those affecting Paul's stay at Corinth, — 
holds this feast to have been the Feast of Tabernacles of A. D. 53, 
which fell on Sept. 16. The distinctive name of "the Feast" was 
certainly applied not only to the Pentecost, but also to the Feast of 
Tabernacles; which, falling at the conclusion of all the agricultural 
labors of the year, seems to have been as much frequented by the na- 
tive Jews, the class whom Paul would be especially anxious to meet 
on this occasion. This hypothesis, moreover, by allowing us to place 
the commencement of Paul's Third Circuit at the very beginning of 
A. d. 54, seems to agree best ;with the dates of the Apostle's thr^e 
years' residence at Ephesus. 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 795 




CHAPTER XL. 

ST. PAUL'S THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY— HIS ARREST AT JERUSALEM, AND IM- 
PRISONMENT AT C^ESAREA. 
[A. D. 54-A. D. 60.] 

[T was — according to the different views explained in the pre- 
ceding chapter — either in the beginning, or toward the 
autumn, of A. D. 54, that Paul, after another considerable stay 
at Antioch, started again upon his old track, and " went over 
all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, confirming 
the disciples," and also giving directions for the collection on behalf 
of the poor saints at Jerusalem. This Third Circuit included a resi- 
dence of no less than three years at Ephesus; a journey 
through Macedonia, and probably as far as Illyricum, which 
brought the Apostle to Corinth, where he spent the three winter 
months of A. D. 57-58. To disconcert a Jewish plot against his life, 
he returned through Macedonia and embarked at Philippi after the 
close of the Passover, and rejoined the companions who sailed direct 
from Corinth at Alexandria Troas. Thence he pursued his voyage, 
the course of which we are able to trace day by day, along the coast 
of Ionia, Caria, and Lycia, and across the Pamphylian and Cilician 
seas, to Tyre, Ptolemais (Acre), and Csesarea, whence he went up by 
land to Jerusalem, to the Feast of Pentecost, and was there arrested 
in the Temple. The duration of the whole circuit was (according to 
the two dates of its commencement) either a little more, or a little 
less, than four years. The companions with whom the Apostle 
started on this journey are not mentioned. It seems probable that 
Silas remained at Jerusalem, whence he had originally been sent as 
one of the bearers of the apostolic edict ; and we next find him as the 
associate of St. Peter, and the bearer of his Epistle to the churches of 
Asia Minor. The Acts and Epistles contain abundant proofs that 
Timothy was with Paul during part of the circuit. Titus, though 
not mentioned in the Acts, appears in the Second Epistle to the Corin- 
thians as the Apostle's minister; and, to pass over less known names, 
Luke, who appears to have joined him at Philippi, furnishes the tes- 
timony of an eye-witness to the rest of the Apostle's career, down to 
both his imprisonments at Rome. 



796 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 

The whole proceedings and writings of the Apostle during this 
journey have the closest relation to that most important question with 
which his recent visit to Jerusalem was probably connected : — What 
was to be the relation of the new kingdom of Christ to the law and 
covenant of the Jews ? Such a church as that at Corinth, with its 
affiliated communities, composed chiefly of Gentile members, appeared 
likely to overshadow by its importance the mother Church in Judsea. 
The jealousy of the more Judaical believers, not extinguished by the 
decision of the council at Jerusalem, began now to show itself every- 
where in the form of an active and intriguing party-spirit. This dis- 
astrous movement could not indeed alienate the heart of St. Paul 
from the Law or the calling or the people of his fathers — his antago- 
nism is never directed against these ; but it drew him into the great 
conflict of the next period of his life, and must have been a sore trial 
to the intense loyalty of his nature. To vindicate the freedom, as re- 
garded the Jewish law, of believers in Christ, but to do this for the 
very sake of maintaining the unity of the Church, was to be the 
earnest labor of the Apostle for some years. In thus laboring he was 
carrying out completely the principles laid down by the elder Apos- 
tles at Jerusalem ; and may we not believe that, in deep sorrow at 
appearing, even, to disparage the Law and the covenant, he was the 
more anxious to prove his fellowship in spirit with the Church * in 
Judaea, by " remembering the poor," as " James, Cephas and John " 
had desired that he would ? The prominence given, during the jour- 
neys upon which we are now entering, to the collection # to be made 
among his churches for the benefit of the poor at Jerusalem, seems to 
indicate such an anxiety. The great Epistles which belong to this 
period, those to the Galatians, Corinthians and Romans, show how 
the " Judaizing " question exercised at this time the Apostle's mind. 
His sharp conflict with the Judaizers began in the 
churches of Galatia,which now showed a lamentable change 
from the spirit with which they had received the Apostle on his first 
visit. Their fickle minds had evidently been captivated by the de- 
scription given by the Judaizers of the privileges of the sons of Abra- 
ham, till they even " desired to be under the law." When Paul 
found it needful to speak plainly of the bondage into which they were 
thus bringing themselves, their former impulsive love was turned to 
resentment, and he " became their enemy because he told them the 
truth." His stay among them was probably brief, as he had to 
redeem his promise to the Ephesians ; and, when the restraint of his 
presence was removed., the Judaizing teachers no longer dissembled 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. T9T 

their personal hostility to the Apostle. Like the same class of ene- 
mies at Corinth, they assailed his apostolic authority, and represented 
him as having derived his commission from the older Apostles, whose 
views (those of Peter and James for example) they probably insinuated 
that he opposed. Such was the occasion of his writing, most proba- 
bly from Ephesus (a. d. 55), that short but pregnant Epistle to the 
Galatians, which contains the plainest possible statement of the lead- 
ing doctrines of the Gospel, with a refutation of the Judaizing heresy, 
equally conspicuous for ingenuity and force of argument, for indigna- 
tion against the false teachers, and compassionate love for the deluded 
disciples who were wronging themselves and him. He recalls to their 
minds the Gospel which he had preached among them, and asserts in 
solemn and even awful language its absolute truth. He declares that 
he had received it directly from Jesus Christ the Lord, and that his 
position toward the other Apostles had always been that, not of a 
pupil, but of an independent fellow-laborer. He sets before them Jesus 
the Crucified, the Son of God, as the fulfilment of the promise made 
to the fathers, and as the pledge and giver of freedom to men. He 
declares that in him, and by the power of the Spirit of sonship sent 
down through him, men have inherited the rights of adult sons of 
God ; that the condition represented by the Law was the inferior and 
preparatory stage of boyhood. He then most earnestly and tenderly 
impresses upon the Galatians the responsibilities of their fellowship 
with Christ the Crucified, urging them to fruitfulness in all the graces 
of their spiritual calling, and especially to brotherly consideration and 
unity. 

The date of the Epistle to the Galatians can be fixed with tolerable 
certainty by internal evidence. That it was written after Paul's 
second visit, is proved by his allusion to the first; but that the 
interval was not long, may be inferred from his mention of the speed 
with which their declension had followed on his departure : and these 
indications are confirmed by an allusion to the collection which the 
Apostle had been making for the poor saints of Judaea among the 
Galatian churches. Mr. Lewin even finds an allusion to the very 
year, in the remonstrance against the observance of days, and weeks, 
and months and years; as the Sabbatic year began on the 1st of Nisan 
in A. d. '55. At all events it seems most probable that the Epistle 
was written during Paul's residence at Ephesus. 

Ephesus may be regarded as the central object of this third journey 
of the Apostle through Asia Minor. The city well deserved the 
importance which the Apostle evidently attached to the redemption 



798 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of the promise he had made during his former hasty visit. What 
Antioch was for the region of Syria and Cilicia, what Corinth was for 
Greece, what -Rome was — we may add — for Italy and the West, that 
Rhesus was for the important province called Asia. Indeed, with 
reference to the spread of the Church Catholic, Ephesus occupied the 
central position of all. This was the meeting-place of Jew, of Greek, 
of Roman and of Oriental. Accordingly, the Apostle of the Gentiles 
was to stay a long time here, that he might found a strong Church, 
which should be a kind of mother-church to Christian communities in 
the neighboring cities of Asia. 

In the interval between the visits of Paul, a new religious move- 
ment had been going on at Ephesus, under the impulse of one whose 
name, after being made at first the watchword of a rival party, has 
been handed down by the Apostle himself in close connection with 
his own. "A certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an 
eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This 
man was instructed in the way of the Lord ; and, being fervent in the 
spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing 
only the baptism of JohnP His bold utterances in the synagogue 
attracted the notice of Aquila and Priscilla, who " received him " — 
probably into the Christian society meeting in their house — "and 
expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly." This instruc- 
tion was doubtless in the way of conference, for we do not read of Aquila 
and Priscilla acting as public teachers. After spending some time at 
Ephesus, Apollos, being desirous of passing into Achaia, carried with 
him letters from the brethren at Ephesus to the Corinthian Church. 
On his arrival at Corinth, " he helped them much which had believed 
through grace ; for he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, 
showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ." His eloquence, 
acquired probably from the teaching of the Alexandrian schools, 
seems to have presented to some of the Corinthian converts those 
captivating qualities which they missed in the " plain speech " of 
Paul ; and Apollos was raised, by no choice of his own, into the 
position of a party leader, with results which we have presently to 
notice. Meanwhile, the influence of the work which he had begun at 
Ephesus, before his association with Aquila and Priscilla, survived 
his departure. Apollos had already reached Corinth, when " Paul, 
having passed through the upper coasts, came to Ephesus." Here he 
found twelve men, who, like Apollos, are called disciples ; but who, 
on being asked by the Apostle whether they had received the Holy 
Ghost when they believed, confessed their ignorance that there was 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 799 

any Holy Ghost. "Unto what then were ye baptized?" asked Paul; 
and they said, "Unto John's baptism." Then, in the language of the 
Baptist himself, Paul explained to them that John's baptism of repent- 
ance was but introductory to faith in Him who should come after 
him, Christ Jesus. Upon this the men were baptized in the name of 
the Lord Jesus, and by the imposition of Paul's hands they received 
the Holy Ghost, and spake with tongues and prophesied. 

After this incident Paul entered upon his public ministry in Ephe- 
sus, according to his usual plan, and with the usual results. He went 
into the Jewish synagogues, where, for the first three months, he con- 
tended and disputed with the Jews, endeavoring with great earnest- 
ness and resolution, to convince them of the truth of the Christian 
religion. But when, instead of success, he met with nothing but 
obstinacy and infidelity, he left the synagogue, and taking with him 
those whom he had converted to the true faith, instructed them and 
others who resorted to him in the school of one Tyrannus, a place 
where scholars used to be instructed. 

In this manner he continued to preach the Gospel two whole years, 
by which means the Jews and proselytes had an opportunity of hear- 
ing the glad tidings of salvation. And because miracles are the 
clearest evidence of a divine commission, the Almighty was pleased to 
testify the doctrine which St. Paul delivered by amazing and miracu- 
lous operations, many of which were of a peculiar and extraordinary 
nature, for he not only healed those that came to him, but if napkins 
or handkerchiefs were only touched by him, and applied to the sick, 
their diseases immediately vanished, and the evil spirits departed out 
of those that were possessed by them. 

The Jews were the first to challenge a decisive contest, in the spirit 
of their countrymen, who had confessed the source of their own exor- 
cisms when they accused our Saviour of casting out devils by Beel- 
zebub the prince of the devils. Every province was infested with 
itinerant Jewish magicians, like Simon Magus and Elymas. Seeing 
probably, like Simon, a new form of charm in the name of Jesus, 
certain of these " vagabond Jews, exorcists," attempted to use it upon 
those possessed with evil spirits, saying, "We adjure you by Jesus, 
whom Paul preacheth." In one case, the experiment led to a result 
as decisive as it was unexpected. The seven sons of a Jewish chief 
priest, named Sceva, engaged in such an exorcism ; and we can fancy 
the parade of gestures and mutterings with which they " mopped and 
mowed" around the patient; when suddenly the evil spirit found a 
voice to repeat the confessions which the powers of darkness had so 



800 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. ft 

often made of Jesus and of Paul himself, and cried out, " Jesus I 
know (acknowledge), and Paul I know; but who are ye?" As the 
cry was uttered, the possessed man attacked his exorcists and over- 
powered them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded, 
exposing their shameful failure to the public gaze. 

The affair became known to all the Greeks and Jews who dwelt at 
Ephesus; and this signal prbof of the Apostle's command, in the 
name of Jesus, over the world of spirits, caused fear to fall upon all 
men, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. A new prac- 
tical effect was produced even among those who had already believed ; 
and many who seem to have been slow to abandon magic arts, now 
confessed and showed their deeds. To confession they added sacrifice, 
bringing forth piles of those books containing the formulas of magic, 
which derived their very name from the city, and formed most 
valuable articles of merchandise, to be publicly burned. The total 
value of the books thus destroyed was computed at 50,000 denarii, or 
about $8850. The Evangelist, who records this great blow to magic 
as a decisive triumph of Christian truth, might well have been 
astounded, if he had seen such arts revived in Christian countries, 
and tampered with, if not believed in, by Christian men. 

It was shortly after this affair that Paul, having now spent two 
years and a quarter at Ephesus, began to make arrangements for his 
further journey into Greece. St. Luke tells that " Paul purposed in 
the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go 
to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Home. 
So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, 
Timotheus and Erastus ; but he himself staved in Asia for a season." 
The natural inference would be that Paul intended to pursue his 
former route through Macedonia to Corinth, and that the mission 
of Timothy and Erastus was to prepare the Macedonian and Achaian 
Churches for his visit, and especially to get ready the contribution for 
the poor saints at Jerusalem, according to the plan which the Apostle 
had appointed for the churches of Galatia : — " Upon the first day of 
the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath 
prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." But to 
the Church of Corinth the mission of Timothy had a further object: 
— "to bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ." 
We shall soon see how needful it was thus to recall to the remem- 
brance of the Corinthians those apostolic lessons and examples, the 
impression of which had been well-nigh effaced by party spirit and 
moral corruption. 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 801 

It is plain that the order of this journey is quite of secondary 
importance, and that St. Luke's " Macedonia and Achaia " may quite 
as well mean "Achaia and Macedonia," if this order be required by 
other evidence. Such evidence we seem to have in the words of St. 
Paul himself; for, in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, written, 
as we shall presently see, from Macedonia in the course of this 
journey, he describes his plan as follows. After expressing his 
earnest hope, confirmed anew from what had occurred meanwhile, 
that they would continue to acknowledge to the very end the truths 
that he had preached and written to them, he adds : — "And, in this 
confidence, I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have 
a second benefit, and to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come 
again out of Macedonia unto you, and of you to be brought on my 
way toward Judaea." Here we have the plan of a journey with the 
same general object as that described in the Acts, embracing both 
Achaia and Macedonia, only in the opposite order, and ending by a 
return to Jerusalem, in order, as we afterward learn, to carry thither 
the contributions of the Gentile churches. There can be no doubt, 
therefore, that the two passages refer to the same journey, and the 
variation in the order presents no real difficulty. But, though un- 
important as a matter of criticism, this variation is of deep interest in 
connection with the Apostle's career, and with his relations to the 
church of Corinth. The strong asseverations which follow the passage 
just quoted, that there was no fickleness, no Yea, yea! and Netty, nay! 
in these his plans, any more than in his doctrine — in language that 
might seem extravagant in relation to the question of making a 
journey at one time rather than another — lead up to the very cogent 
motives that caused the Apostle to change his plan : — " Moreover, I 
call God as a witness to my soul that to spare you I came not as yet 
unto Corinth: .... But I determined this with myself, that I would 
not come again to you in sorrow :" — and then he says how, amid the 
former sorrow thus referred to, he had written his First Epistle, " not 
to grieve them, but that they might know the abundance of his love 
for them." 

That First Epistle explains the source of all this sorrow, and the 
influence it had on the Apostle's change of plan. Certain brethren, 
who came to Ephesus from Corinth, and whom, with true Christian 
honor, he mentions by name, had brought him afflicting news con- 
cerning the Corinthian Church : " It hath been declared unto you, my 
brethren, by those of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions 
among you." Nor was this the worst. The Church had been dis- 
51 



802 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

graced by scandalous immorality, without any censure upon the 
offender, and, among other grave disorders in worship, the Lord's 
Supper had been profaned into a riotous feast. Now comes out the 
character of Paul. A man of his fearless plain-speaking zeal might 
perhaps have been expected to hasten to Corinth, and combat with 
the evil in person. But he takes counsel of a kindlier wisdom. To 
spare them, he delays his visit to Corinth, and determines to make his 
journey by way of Macedonia first ; then to stay awhile at Corinth, 
and probably to winter there, and to be brought on by them on his 
further journey. Meanwhile he resolved to stay at Ephesus till Pen- 
tecost, to improve his growing success — " a great and effectual door is 
opened unto me " — and to combat the " many adversaries," of whom 
we shall soon hear more. In case Timothy, who had already been 
sent into Macedonia, apparently with directions to wait for Paul at 
Corinth, should arrive there, he is commended to their regard, in 
terms which imply a fear of insult from the Anti-Pauline party, and 
they are bidden to send him forth in peace, that he might return to 
Paul. 

While thus arranging his plans so as to give his disciples at Corinth 
a space for repentance before his arrival, he stimulated them to that 
repentance, and gave directions for that reformation of their disorders 
which would prepare for his coming to them in joy and peace, by 
writing the letter from which the above particulars have been gath- 
ered, the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Its contents give decisive 
indications of its date and place : it was written after Paul's second 
visit to Galatia ; after the mission of Timothy, and Erastus ; and after 
the change in the Apostle's plans. St. Paul alludes to his being still 
in Asia, and at Ephesus, whence he was contemplating his departure 
at the ensuing Pentecost ; circumstances which fix the date to the 
spring of his last year's residence at Ephesus (a. d. 57). The sugges- 
tion, that the date may be more exactly fixed to the season of the 
Passover by the allusion to that feast, is both ingenious and reason- 
able. The Epistle was no doubt sent, as the subscription states, by 
the hands of Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus, who had lately 
come from Corinth, as w r e shall presently see, and who are especially 
commended to the honorable regard of the Church. The supposition 
that they were accompanied by Titus seems to be negatived by the 
absence of any mention in the First Epistle of that mission of his on 
which so much stress is laid in the second, and which evidently took 
place shortly after the dispatch of the First Epistle, and while Paul 
was still at Enhesus ; as he expected — though his anxiety caused him 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 803 

to expect it too soon — to meet Titus at Troas on his return from 
Corinth. The allusion to the presence of Apollos is not only im- 
portant as another mark of time, but as an indication of his complete 
concord with Paul in the reproofs addressed to the Corinthians for 
making parties in the name of the Apostle and himself. It would 
seem that Paul wished him to go to Corinth with the bearers of the 
Epistle and enforce its admonitions, but that Apollos, with wise deli- 
cacy, preferred to postpone his visit, lest his presence should rather 
inflame the dissensions : — "As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly 
desired him to come unto you with the brethren : but his will was not 
at all to come at this time ; but he will come when he shall have a 
convenient time." 

Such were the circumstances under which St. Paul wrote the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians. But besides the occasion furnished by the 
information received from those of the house of Chloe, we learn that 
the Epistle was written in reply to a letter of inquiry from the 
Corinthians fhemselves upon certain questions of great importance; 
which letter was brought to Ephesus by Stephanus and Fortunatus 
and Achaicus, the same brethren who carried back the Apostle's 
answer. But further, it is now generally supposed that the Epistle 
contains allusions to a visit, not mentioned in the Acts, which Paul 
paid to Corinth, during the first half of his stay at Ephesus, and to a 
letter which he wrote to the Church soon after this visit, and before 
that which is now called the First Epistle. The ingenuity of these 
conjectures has caused them to be perhaps too hastily received. The 
hypothesis of a former Epistle, which is not now extant, rests on the 
slight evidence of a single allusion. The arguments for the supposed 
visit to Corinth are derived entirely from the use in certain passages 
of the phrases, the third time, again, and so forth ; but, so long as they 
are not proved incapable (as Paley has shown) of another interpreta- 
tion, they cannot be held conclusive in the absence of direct historic 
evidence. But, at all events, the decision of this doubtful question is 
of little consequence compared with the ample evidence, furnished by 
the Epistle itself, of the sleepless vigilance and untiring affection with 
which Paul kept up communication with the Church at Corinth, amid 
all his troubles and conflicts at Ephesus, — a striking instance of "that 
which came upon him daily, the care of all the churches." 

This varied and highly characteristic letter, addressed not to any 
party, but to the whole body of the large Judseo-Gentile Church of 
Corinth, was called forth first, as we have seen, by the information 
the Apostle had received from members of the household of Chloe 



804 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

that there were divisions in the Church ; that parties had been formed 
which took the names of Paul, of Apollos, of Cephas, and of Christ : 
— secondly, by the moral and social irregularities that had begun to 
prevail, of which the most conspicuous and scandalous example was 
that a believer had taken his father's wife, without being publicly 
condemned by the Church ; to which we must add one doctrinal 
error, of those who said " that there was no resurrection of the dead ;" 
— thirdly, by the inquiries that had been specially addressed to St. 
Paul by the Church of Corinth on several matters relating .to Chris- 
tian practice. It is probable that the teaching of Apollos the Alexan- 
drian, which had been characteristic and highly successful, had been 
the first occasion of the divisions in the Church. AYe may take it for 
granted that his adherents did not form themselves into a party until 
he had left Corinth, and therefore that he had been some time with 
St. Paul at Ephesus. But after he had gone, the special Alexandrian 
features of his teaching were remembered by those who had delighted 
to hear him. Their Grecian intellect was captivated r5y his broader 
and more spiritual interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures. The con- 
nection which he taught them to perceive between the revelation made 
to Hebrew rulers and prophets and the wisdom by which other na- 
tions, and especially their own, had been enlightened, dwelt in their 
minds. That which especially occupied the Apollos school must have 
been a philosophy of the Scriptures. It was the tendency of this party 
which seemed to the Apostle particularly dangerous among the Greeks. 
He hardly seems to refer specially in his letter to the other parties, 
but we can scarcely doubt that in what he says about " the wisdom 
which the Greeks sought " he is referring not only to the general 
tendency of the Greek mind, but to that tendency as it had been 
caught and influenced by the teaching of Apollos. It gives him an 
occasion of delivering his most characteristic testimony. He recog- 
nizes wisdom, but it is the wisdom of God ; and that wisdom was not 
only a So^i'o or a Adyoj, through which God had always spoken to all 
men ; it had been perfectly manifested in Jesus the Crucified. Christ 
crucified was both the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. To 
receive him required a spiritual discernment unlike the wisdom of the 
great men of the world; a discernment given by the Holy ©Spirit 
of God, and manifesting itself in sympathy with Christ's humilia- 
tion and love. 

Having dispatched his epistles, St. Paul remained in 

Ephesus, improving his success, and preaching the Gospel 

with renewed vigor, intending to leave the city after the Pentecost, 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 805 

which was drawing near. His departure was hastened by a tumult 
which now broke out, and of which he was the innocent cause. 

There stood in Ephesus a magnificent Temple of Diana, which was 
so famous for its beauty that it was considered one of the seven won- 
ders of the world. It was held in the greatest veneration by all the 
believers in the faith of the Greeks and Romans, for it contained an 
image of Diana, which was said to have been made by Jupiter himself, 
and dropped down from heaven. The silversmiths of Ephesus carried 
on a large trade in gold and silver models or shrines of this temple, 
some of which were so small as to be carried in the pocket as charms. 
One Demetrius, the chief of the silversmiths, perceiving that the 
establishment of the Christian faith would do away with his trade, 
stirred up the Ephesians against the Apostles, by working on the 
popular zeal for Diana. The result was, that failing to find Paul, 
the mob seized two of his companions, Gaius and Aristarchus, and 
hurried them to the theatre, intending to throw them to the wild 
beasts. Paul, hearing of this, prepared to go to the theatre, to en- 
deavor to plead in behalf of his brethren, but was prevented by the 
Christians of the place, and by several of the prominent Gentiles who 
were his friends, who represented to him that he would only expose 
himself to the popular rage without accomplishing any good for his 
companions. 

The mob created a frightful tumult, and nothing prevented the 
murder of the friends of the Apostle, but the timely interposition of 
the town-clerk, who having obtained silence reminded the people that 
their zeal in behalf of Diana was too well known throughout the 
world to need any such bloody attestation, and declared that if the 
silversmiths had anything to charge against Paul and his friends, 
they ought to do so through the civil courts, which were then in 
session and open to them, and reminded them that they would do 
well to put up with peaceable measures as they had already rendered 
themselves liable to be punished by the Imperial government for 
inciting so great a tumult. His words had the desired effect. Gaius 
and Aristarchus were released, and the crowd dispersed. St. Paul 
regarded the escape of himself and his friends as miraculous, and so 
speaks of it in his writings. 

After the cessation of the tumult, in which, for the first 

time, we see the spirit, no longer of Jewish, but of heathen 

hostility, breaking out in full fury against the Gospel, Paul set out 

for Macedonia. His journey already fixed for Pentecost (May 28), 

would naturally be somewhat hastened by the riot ; but that he made 



806 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

no precipitate flight is shown by his calling the brethren together and 
embracing them, before his departure. St. Luke briefly records his 
passage through Macedonia, exhorting the disciples in many a dis- 
course ; and his arrival in Greece, where he abode three months (Nov. 
to Feb. A. D. 57-8). Important light is thrown upon the interval by 
the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, which was written upon the 
journey. Pursuing the usual route along the coast, probably by sea, 
Paul reached Troas, the port of departure for Europe, bent on his evan- 
gelic work, and found a door opened to him of the Lord. But his own 
peace of mind was broken by the disappointment of not finding Titus, 
whom he had expected to meet him there with the tidings of the re- 
ception of his First Epistle. That his success at Troas was mingled 
with fresh outbreaks of heathen opposition, may be inferred from that 
solemn passage in which, while thanking God that the Gospel preached 
by him was nowhere without effect, he records, with overwhelming 
emotion, its two opposite results : — " Now thanks be to God, which 
always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the 
savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God 
a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish : 
to the one we are the savor of death unto death ; and to the other the 
savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?" These 
are the words of an Apostle seeing many of those whom he was labor- 
ing to save reject the counsel of God again themselves; but that many 
received it, is seen by the state in which he found the Church of 
Troas on his return. 

These complicated anxieties still distracted the Apostle when he 
landed, as before, at Neapolis, and crossed the mountains to Philippi : 
— " When we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but 
we were troubled on every side ; without were fightings, within were 
fears." This was the time chosen by " God that comforteth those 
that are cast down " to comfort the Apostle by the arrival of Titus, 
and still more by the news he brought from Corinth. There can be 
little doubt that the meeting took place at Philippi ; and here also, 
if not before, Paul was rejoined by Timothy, whether he had made 
that place the headquarters of his work, with Erastus, in Macedonia, 
or whether he also had reached it on his return from Corinth. 

These circumstances concur with all the internal evidence, to mark 
both the time and place of St. Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians. 
It was written after the troubles that had befallen the Apostle in 
Asia; after his preaching and disappointment at Troas, his arrival in 
Macedonia, and the consolation received there by his meeting with 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 



80T 




\rh 






THE SYRIAN FOX. 

Titus ; while he was engaged in making the collection for the poor at 
Jerusalem ; and in immediate anticipation of a renewed visit, whether 
it were his second or third, to Corinth. One specific date is furnished 
by the mention of his rapture fourteen years before ; but as this is 
the sole allusion to that event, we can only say that the fourteen years 
carries us back to one of the epochs at which we know that St. Paul 
was at Jerusalem on the mission from Antioch with Barnabas in A. d. 
44 or 45. 

The Epistle was written under the impulse of deep and complex emo- 
tions, which we have the Apostle's own authority for tracing to the news 
brought to him by Titus. But here a most interesting question is 
opened by various points of internal evidence, concerning the several 
missions of Timothy and Titus to Corinth, and their combined influ- 
ence in exciting the feelings under which the Apostle wrote. We 
have already seen that Timothy had been sent into Macedonia, with 
the express intention that he should proceed to Corinth, there to dis- 
charge the mission of recalling the wavering Church to the Apostle's 
" ways in Christ." On the view that Timothy fulfilled this part of 
his mission, it is supposed that the intelligence which he brought 
upon his return — that a certain faction in the Corinthian Church had 
now gone the length of openly questioning Paul's authority — made 
the Apostle feel the necessity of at once dispatching to the contentious 
Church one of his immediate followers, with instructions to support 
and strengthen the effect of the First Epistle, and to bring back the 



808 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

most recent tidings of the spirit that was prevailing at Corinth : and 
hence the mission of Titus, accompanied by another brother, whom 
some suppose to have been Luke. It has been further conjectured, 
that the Apostle, provoked by the open attack upon his authority, made 
Titus the bearer of another Letter (supplementary, so to speak, to the 
First Epistle), containing the sharpest rebukes, using the authority 
which had been denied, and threatening to enforce it speedily by his 
personal presence. This, it is supposed, was the letter written " out of 
much affliction and anguish of heart, with many tear^" and in a tone so 
severe that the Apostle at first repented having written it, though he 
repented no longer when he found that the sorrow it had caused the 
disciples for a time was " a godly sorrow, working repentance unto sal- 
vation not to be repented of." But there seems quite enough severity in 
the First Epistle to have moved the disciples to such feelings, and so to 
have caused the Apostle these alternations of regret and satisfaction. 
After the distinct intimation of his intention of following up that 
letter by his personal presence, another letter in the same tone would 
have looked like the weakness of repeating threats in place of action. 
Sound criticism forbids the assumption of unrecorded facts and non- 
extant documents, till every other explanation fails; and we may 
justly suspect the conjectures, however ingenious, which result in there 
having been four epistles to the Corinthians instead of two. All, 
therefore, that we can affirm with certainty is, that Paul, while still 
in Asia, and probably some little time after the writing of the First 
Epistle, sent Titus on a mission to Corinth, the result of which, 
awaited with the utmost anxiety, and received by the Apostle in 
Macedonia, roused those mingled and passionate emotions, under 
which — in conjunction with Timothy, who had rejoined him at some 
uncertain period, whether from Corinth or not — he wrote the Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians. It was sent by the hands of Titus, who 
showed a spontaneous readiness to accept the Apostle's proposal that he 
should return to Corinth, and finish the collection, which he had begun 
on his former visit with a success that had caused him great joy, and had 
justified the boast which the Apostle had made of the liberality of the 
Corinthians. Titus was accompanied by two brethren, not mentioned 
indeed by name, but recommended to the Church in very emphatic 
terms as among the most eminent and faithful of Paul's companions. 
This Epistle reveals to us what manner of man St. Paul was when 
the fountains of his heart were stirred to their inmost depths. How 
the agitation w T hich expresses itself in every sentence of this letter 
was excited, is one of the most interesting questions we have to con- 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 809 

sider. Every reader may perceive that, on passing from the First 
Epistle to the Second, the scene is almost entirely changed. In the 
First, the faults and difficulties of the Corinthian Church are before 
us. The Apostle writes of these, with spirit indeed and emotion, as 
he always does, but without passion or disturbance. He calmly 
asserts his own authority over the Church, and threatens to deal 
severely with offenders. In the Second, he writes as one whose per- 
sonal relations with those whom he addresses have undergone a most 
painful shock. The acute pain given by former tidings — the comfort 
yielded by the account which Titus brought — the vexation of a 
sensitive mind at the necessity of self-assertion — contend together for 
utterance. What had occasioned this excitement ? 

The solution of this question must be sought in the contents of the 
Epistle itself. They are very varied ; but may be arranged gene- 
rally under the three following heads : — 1st, The Apostle's account 
of the character of his spiritual labors, accompanied with notices of 
his affectionate feelings toward his converts ; 2d, Directions about the 
collections; 3d, Defence of his own Apostolical character. A close 
analysis is scarcely compatible with our limits, as in no one of the 
Apostle's epistles are the changes more rapid and frequent. Now he 
thanks God for their general state ; now he glances to his purposed 
visit; now he alludes to the special directions in the first letter; 
again he returns to his own plans, pleads his own Apostolic dignity, 
dwells long upon the spirit and nature of his own labors, his own 
hopes, and his own sufferings, returning again to more specific declara- 
tions of his love toward his children in the faith, and a yet further 
declaration of his views and feelings with regard to them. Then 
again, in the matter of the alms, he stirs up their liberality by 
alluding to the conduct of the churches of Macedonia, their spiritual 
progress, the example of Christ, and passes on to speak more fully of 
the present mission of Titus and his associates, and to reiterate his 
exhortations to liberality. In the third portion he passes into lan- 
guage of severity and reproof; he gravely warns those who presume 
to hold lightly his Apostolical authority ; he puts strongly forward 
his Apostolical dignity ; he illustrates his forbearance ; he makes 
honest boast of his labors ; he declares the revelations vouchsafed to 
him; he again returns to the nature of his dealings with his converts, 
and concludes with grave and reiterated warning, brief greetings, and 
a doxology. 

The remaining part of the interval between Paul's departure from 
Ephcsus in May and his arrival at Corinth for the winter — an inter- 



810 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

val which he would naturally prolong, to give time for the Epistle to 
do its work — affords time, not only for his finishing the collection in 
Macedonia, but for that advance westward toward the shores of the 
Adriatic which he mentions in words that seem to contain an emphatic 
allusion to the completion (at least in outline) of the evangelization 
of the eastern division of the empire, preparatory to a movement upon 
Rome itself: — " So that from Jerusalem, and in a circuit as far as 
lllyricum, I have fulfilled the Gospel of Christ." This view agrees 
well with Luke's brief notice of Paul's visit to Macedonia : — " When 
he had gone through those parts, and had given them much exhorta- 
tion, he came into Greece, and there abode three months." This 
passage, in which it is remarkable that even the name of Corinth is 
not mentioned, looks almost as if left to be filled up from the Apos- 
tle's letters. Among the many allusions to Corinth as the object of 
this journey, there is one in which he declares the distinct intention 
of wintering there; and, as we shall presently see, the time of his 
departure makes it clear that his three months' abode at Corinth 
extended from about the end of November, A. d. 57, to about the end 
of February, A. D. 58. Those three months might well have been 
fully occupied with the final settlement of the questions, and correction 
of the disorders, which fill so large a space in the two Epistles to the 
Church, and in visits to the other churches of the province of Achaia. 
But, amid these labors, the Apostle found time for the composition 
of that wonderful work, which has ever since formed the chief 
foundation of Christian theology. The blank left in the narrative of 
St. Luke is filled up by that colossal monument of the inspired genius 
of St. Paul, the Epistle to the Romans. The internal evidences, 
both of place and date, are not only perfectly distinct, but they show 
why the Epistle was written at this juncture. Paul writes as the 
guest of Gaius, whom we know as one of the most conspicuous mem- 
bers of the Corinthian Church. He sends salutations from Erastus, 
the chamberlain of the city, from Timotheus his fellow-laborer, and 
from Sosipater, whom we presently find accompanying him on his 
voyage from Greece to Asia. He mentions the completion, not only 
in Macedonia, but also in Achaia, of the collection, which he was then 
on the point of carrying to the poor saints at Jerusalem. 

This sacred mission of charity was now the only remaining hin- 
drance to the gratification of a desire which he had cherished for 
many years, but which his labors in the East had hitherto postponed, 
to visit the Church of Rome, and even to extend his western mission 
as far as Spain. We have contemplated the Apostle on the track of 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 811 

Alexander : we now see him yearning, but in how much nobler a 
spirit, for the conquest of new worlds. His great work of breaking 
up new ground, of planting the Churches, which his successors, like 
Apollos, were to water, was now done in the Greek division of the 
Roman world. " But now having no more place in these regions" is 
a striking description of a completed work, as coming from one who, 
in every word as well as deed, lived in all good conscience toward 
God. May we not also regard them as a lesson when to leave to God 
the issues of a work, begun in faith and diligence, but far too vast to 
be finished in all its details ? Nor must we overlook the prominence 
which the Apostle assigns to one character of his work : " Yea ! so 
have I strived to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was named, lest 
I should build upon another man's foundation : but as it is written, 
to whom he was not spoken of, they shall see ; and they that have 
not heard shall understand." This he held to be an essential feature 
of that mission on which he was sent to the Gentiles, " ministering as 
a priest in the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles 
might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost ;" and, while 
he does not hesitate to declare that " he had something to boast of 
through Jesus Christ in the things pertaining to God," as to the fruits 
of his past labors, the same rule was to be his guide for the future. 
It is very striking that, ardent and long-cherished as was his desire 
to see his Christian brethren at Rome, he speaks of its approaching 
fulfilment as but a passing visit, on his way to break up virgin soil 
for the good seed in Spain. And accordingly (as also in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews) the powerful arguments and earnest exhortations 
of the Epistle are marked by a tone different from that in which he 
addresses his own converts, as if they were the substitute for a more 
direct ministration of the Word. 

The providence of God had appointed that Paul should 
do a greater and more permanent work at Rome, as the 
result of movements which form an affecting contrast to those which 
he thus shadows forth. The very errand of mercy to Jerusalem, 
which he regards as but a temporary delay of his inroad upon the West, 
was the cause of his being sent as a prisoner to the capital, where his 
two years' enforced residence provided for the work he had to do 
both among Jews and Gentiles. Nor does he write without a pre- 
sentiment of this result, which was soon to ripen into a prophetic 
certainty. He entreats the Roman Christians, by their common Lord 
Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to wrestle together with 
him in their prayers to God on his behalf, " That I may be delivered 



812 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

from the unbelievers in Judcea, and that my service for Jerusalem may 
be acceptable to the saints ; that I may come unto you with joy by 
the will of God, and may with you be refreshed." 

The Epistle itself throws a clear light upon the peculiar motives, 
added to the general interest attaching to the capital of the world, 
which led the Apostle so ardently to cherish the desire, " I must also 
see Rome." The twofold aspect of his life, as the converted Jew and 
the Apostle of the Gentiles, as the Christian missionary ever invading 
new provinces of heathendom, and the Hebrew of the Hebrews yearn- 
ing for the salvation of Israel, would move him to deep sympathy 
with the Church of Rome ; nor could his honest pride in his Roman 
franchise fail to be another motive to labor for the spiritual freedom 
of his fellow-citizens. Regarding Rome solely from the classical 
point of view, we might be surprised — as many doubtless have felt 
surprise — at the perpetual appeal to Jewish feelings and associations, 
and the perpetual contest with Jewish prejudices, which runs through 
the whole Epistle. But the readers of Horace and Juvenal are aware 
how strong was the Jewish element in Roman society. We have 
already had occasion to notice the early propagation of Christianity 
among the Roman Jews ; and we shall soon see Paul, on his first 
arrival at this city, addressing himself as specially to them and meet- 
ing with the same obstinate unbelief, save from the few, as when he 
preached in the Eastern synagogues. Moreover, as if to anticipate 
the great usurpation of the later Romish Church, this Christian 
society owed its foundation neither to St. Peter nor to any other 
Apostle, but appears, so to speak, as the spontaneous development of 
the Christian faith, introduced probably by the Jews who went up to 
the great Pentecost. It was natural that such a community should 
have within it a peculiar element of Judaism, needing the correction 
which the Apostle supplies in the wonderful arguments of the Epistle, 
and exciting the ardent interest on behalf of Israel which is no less 
conspicuous throughout it. But it is equally clear that there was a 
strong, and perhaps even more numerous Gentile element in the 
Church ; an element, however, which seems to have been rather 
Greek than Roman. It may have been that foreigners resident in 
the capital had a tendency to gravitate toward one another, and that 
the Greeks, more familiar with the " peculiar people," did not regard 
them with the same aversion as the Romans did : but, whatever the 
explanation, nothing is more certain than the apparent paradox, that 
the Church of Rome was Greek rather than Latin. A curious indica- 
tion of the relative proportion, both of Jews to Gentiles, and of Greeks 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 813 

to Romans, in the Church, is furnished by the long list of names in 
the salutation at the end of the Epistle. These names belong, for the 
most part, to the middle and lower grades of society. Many of them 
are found in the columbaria of the freedmen and slaves of the early 
Roman emperors, It was among the less wealthy merchants and 
tradesmen, among the petty officers of the army, among the slaves and 
freedmen of the imperial palace, " those that are of Caesar's household 7 ' 
— whether Jews or Greeks — that the Gospel would first find a foot- 
ing. The intimate personal element in some of the salutations at 
once attests the presence of Hellenist Jews, and adds another motive 
for St. Paul's deep interest in the Roman Church : — " Salute Androni- 
cus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note 
among the Apostles, who also were in Christ before me ;" a graceful 
and affecting recognition of Christian precedence. Among Paul's 
personal friends at Rome were now numbered Aquila and Priscilla, 
whose claims on the Apostle's affection and the gratitude of all the 
Church were enhanced by some special danger that they had incurred 
for his sake (the cause, perhaps, of their having left Ephesus again for 
Rome), and whose house, as at Ephesus, was the place of meeting of a 
Christian society, which Paul recognizes as a church. We cannot 
doubt that many converts, made by Paul himself and the other min- 
isters of the Gospel throughout the empire, were continually converg- 
ing to Rome, and adding to the vigor of the Church, which had by 
this time gained such distinction that " their faith was spoken of 
throughout the whole world." 

This composition of the Church, and these personal relations of the 
Apostle to it, account for the peculiar tone which distinguishes the 
Epistle to the Romans. While earnestly praying that he might at 
length have a prosperous journey to come to them, as he had often 
proposed, that he might have some fruit among them, as among the 
other Gentiles — for, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, he was debtor 
both to the Greeks and the barbarians, to the wise and unwise, and 
was ready, to his utmost ability, to preach the Gospel at Rome also — 
he supplies the lack of his personal presence, and prepares for his 
coming by a grand manifesto of the Gospel as the one salvation for all 
the classes that were gathered in the composite Roman Church. " I 
am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; for it is the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that believeth j to the Jew first, and also 
to the Greek." That Gospel was invariably the announcement of 
Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Lord of men, who was made man, 
died, and was raised again, and whom his heralds present to the faith 
and obedience of mankind. 



814 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The Epistle was sent by the hands of Phoebe to Home, on the 
eve of St. Paul's departure for Jerusalem, which may be fixed about 
the end of February, as he was at Philippi at the Passover 
(March 27, A. d. 58). He was on the point of starting by 
sea for Syria, when the discovery of a Jewish plot to waylay him 
caused him to take the overland route by way of Macedonia. But 
his travelling companions from the various places he had visited — 
associated with him, probably, in the mission of carrying the contri- 
butions of their respective churches — went on by sea to Troas, doubt- 
less carrying the money with them. The resumption of the first 
person in the Acts indicates that Luke was the immediate companion 
of St. Paul ; and the details of the voyage are given with such pre- 
cision that we can fix the daily dates with high probability. 

The narrative of the Apostle's voyage begins from Philippi, whence 
Paul sailed " after the days of unleavened bread," that is, on the day 
following the eighth day of the feast (Tuesday, April 4th), and he 
reached Troas in five days (Saturday, April 8th). He had remained 
there a full seven days, when, on the return of the first day of the 
week (Sunday, April 16th), the disciples came together to break 
bread, and Paul preached to them, ready to depart on the morrow. 
Here we have one of the incidental notices — more valuable than any 
formal statement, because they show how regularly the custom was 
established — of those meetings of the Christians on the Lord's Day 
for social converse and divine worship, which Pliny mentions as their 
only known institution. Unable, for the most part, to withdraw 
from the service of their masters during the day, they met either — as 
Pliny tells us — before day-light, or, as on this occasion at Troas, 
after sunset. The congregation, like that of the first disciples at 
Jerusalem, met in an upper chamber, where Paul — for the time was 
not come when utterances out of the abundance of the heart were 
measured by the minute — continued his discourse till midnight, and 
was only then interrupted by an accident. A youth named Eutychus, 
who was sitting in the window, overpowered with drowsiness through 
the heat of the many lamps, fell down from the third story and was 
taken up dead. The miracle by which Paul restored him to life 
resembled in form those performed by Elijah and Elisha, while it 
again illustrated the compassionate saying of our Lord, — " The spirit 
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Returning to the upper 
chamber, without waiting till the youth's friends had the comfort 
of seeing his full recovery (ver. 12), Paul broke bread and ate with 
the disciples, and having talked with them till the break of day, 
departed. 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 815 

To gain time for this protracted farewell, Paul had sent his com- 
panions before him to the ship, and, while they doubled the promon- 
tory of Lectum, he took the shorter route by land to join them at 
Assos, whence they crossed to Mitylene (Monday, April 7th). Avoid- 
ing the windings of the coast, they sailed from Lesbos to Chios on 
the Tuesday, and on the next day to Samos, whence crossing over to 
the mainland, they stayed at the promontory of Trogyllium, and 
reached Miletus on Thursday, April 20th. Here they stopped, while 
Paul sent for the elders of the Church of Ephesus ; for his direct 
course had carried him across the bay at the bottom of which that 
city lies ; as the staying any time among his converts in Asia would 
have risked his purposed arrival at Jerusalem by the day of Pente- 
cost. The distance between Ephesus and Miletus being about forty 
miles, the interval from the Thursday to the Sunday would give time 
for the arrival of the elders, with whom Paul held solemn converse, 
as on the Sunday before at Troas (Sunday, April 23d), warning them 
of the dangers which would threaten them in the future, and ex- 
horting them to cling to the faith of Jesus Christ. Finally, "he 
kneeled down and prayed with them all : and they all wept sore, and 
fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the 
words which he spake, that they should see his face no more. And 
they accompanied him to the ship." 

From this most affecting leave-taking the Apostle hastened on his 
voyage by the most direct course. Embarking immediately on the 
close of his address, he sailed straight to the island of Cos (Monday, 
April 24th), thence to Rhodes (Tuesday), and thence to Patara in 
Lycia (Wednesday), where, finding another ship bound direct for 
Phoenicia, he went on board (Thursday, April 27th), and, sighting 
Cyprus on the left hand, arrived at Tyre, where the ship was to 
unload. The ordinary course of such a voyage would bring the 
Apostle to that ancient city on Sunday (April 30th) ; and another 
Lord's Day was cheered by a welcome from certain disciples, of whose 
existence in the city he seems not to have been aware. With them 
he spent a whole week, in the course of which the prophetic gifts 
poured out upon these Tyrian Christians were used to warn Paul 
against going on to Jerusalem. How, in that one week, the Apostle 
gained the affection of these new-found brethren, was proved by 
the concourse in which, with their wives and children, they brought 
him and his company out of the city to the sea-shore, where all 
kneeled down together and prayed before the voyagers went on board. 

Supposing that, as at Troas and Miletus, Paul spent the Lord's 



816 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Day with the Tyrian Christians, his voyage to Ptolemais (Acre) would 
occupy the Monday, and his one day's stay there with the brethren, 
the Tuesday (May 9). On the following day Paul and his company 
proceeded, apparently by land, to Caesarea, and took up their abode 
with " Philip the Evangelist, one of the Seven," a description which 
doubtless refers to those who are usually called Deacons. The four 
virgin daughters of Philip prophesied, probably repeating former 
warnings, which were now most plainly uttered by Agabus, whom we 
have already seen predicting the famine in the reign of Claudius. 
This prophet came down from Jerusalem to. Csesarea, apparently for 
the express purpose of staying Paul's course. Imitating the symbolic 
methods of the ancient prophets, he bound his own hands and feet 
with Paul's girdle, declaring, in the name of the Spirit, that the Jews 
at Jerusalem would even thus bind the owner of that girdle, and 
deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. Upon hearing this, even 
St. Paul's own companions joined in the entreaties of the brethren of 
Csesarea, that he would not go up to Jerusalem. The Evangelist, 
w 7 ho tells us of this final appeal in which he himself joined, thus 
records its issue : — " Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep 
and to break mine heart? For I am ready, not to be bound only, 
but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And 
when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the 
Lord be done." So, after a stay of several days at Csesarea, they 
packed up their little baggage, and went up, doubtless on foot, by 
the usual road to Jerusalem, accompanied by an aged disciple of 
Cyprus, named Mnason, who had offered them a lodging in the 
crowded city. 

This fifth visit of St. Paul to Jerusalem since his conversion is the 
last of which we have any certain record. The state of the city, 
thronged with the excited multitudes who had come up to the Feast 
of Pentecost, might well recall to him, not only the warnings that 
had encountered him at every step, but the deed of blood in which 
he himself, twenty-five years before, had played the part for w T hich 
he never ceased to feel remorse. He was welcomed with joy by the 
brethren, and on the following day (Thursday, May 18th) he had an 
interview w T ith James and all the elders of the Church, to whom 
" he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the 
Gentiles by his ministry." Among those things, besides the spiritual 
fruits which he had raised, the temporal fruits of charity which he 
had gathered in return for his poor Jewish brethren would naturally 
find a place, and we may assume that Paul and his delegated com- 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 817 

panions handed over the contributions from the respective churches. 
But St. Luke passes over this incident, to relate the events that led to 
the Apostle's apprehension ; and, indeed, concern for his character 
and safety seems to have been the thought uppermost in the minds 
of the brethren. For the great crisis had now come in the relations 
between the spirit of Judaism and the Apostle of the Gentiles ; nor 
was it only from the unconverted Jews that the danger threatened. 
The Jewish Christians, whether resident at Jerusalem or present at 
the feast, now amounted to " many thousands," but their understand- 
ing of the Gospel had not kept pace with their numbers : they were 
" all zealous of the law." To them, and to the unconverted Jews, 
Paul was known as one who had taught with pre-eminent boldness 
that a way into God's favor was opened to the Gentiles, and that this 
way did not lie through the door of the Jewish Law. He had 
founded numerous and important communities, composed of Jews and 
Gentiles together, which stood simply on the name of Jesus Christ 
apart from circumcision and the observance of the Law. He had 
thus roused against himself the bitter enmity of that unfathomable 
Jewish pride, which was almost as strong in some of those who had 
professed the faith of Jesus as in their unconverted brethren. This 
enmity had for years been vexing both body and soul of the Apostle. 
He had no rest from its persecutions ; and his joy in proclaiming the 
free grace of God to the world was mixed with a constant sorrow that 
in so doing he was held to be disloyal to the calling of his fathers. 
He had now come to Jerusalem "ready to die for the name of the 
.Lord Jesus," but he had come expressly to prove himself a faithful 
Jew, and this purpose emerges at every point of the history. His 
brethren at Jerusalem now suggest to him a mode of accomplishing 
this object. While glorifying God for the work which had been done 
among the Gentiles, they do not conceal from Paul that the calumnies 
against him have gained belief among the Jewish Christians. The 
specific charge was, not simply that he kept Gentile believers free 
from the yoke of the Law — for this was in accordance with the deci- 
sion of the Jewish Church itself — but that " he taught all the Jews 
among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to 
circumcise their children, neither to walk after their customs." To 
refute this charge, there was a practical opportunity. 

Four men connected with the Church had bound themselves, as we 

have seen Paul himself doing, by a temporary Nazarite vow, and 

their purification upon the completion of the vow was at hand. This 

ceremony involved a considerable expense for the offerings to be prc- 

52 



818 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

sented in the Temple ; and it was a meritorious act to provide these 
offerings for the poorer Nazarites. St. Paul was requested to put 
himself under the vow with the other four, and to supply the cost of 
the offerings. He at once accepted the proposal, and on the next day, 
having performed some ceremony which implied the adoption of 
the vow, he went into the Temple, announcing that the due offer- 
ings of each Nazarite were about to be presented, and the period of 
the vow terminated, a process which would occupy seven days 
(Friday, May 19th). 

The week was almost accomplished, when certain Jews 
from Asia, probably some of Paul's old antagonists at Ephe- 
sus, recognized him in the Temple. They had already seen with him 
in the city Trophimus, an Ephesian Greek, whom they chose to think 
that Paul had brought into the Temple. So they roused a tumult 
among the people, and seizing Paul dragged him out of the Temple 
into the outer court. The Levitical guard shut the doors of the 
sacred edifice to prevent Paul's return, and the Apostle would have 
been murdered without a hearing had he not been rescued by a de- 
tachment of the Roman cohort, stationed in the fortress of the Antonia, 
which promptly arrived on the spot and charged the mob. The sol- 
diers bound Paul in order to carry him into the fort, but as they 
reached it a rush was made upon them by the mob, and they were 
obliged to carry him into the tower in their arms, in order to save 
him. 

The whole scene and the vigorous measures of the Roman tribune 
commanding the Antonia, will be better understood in their connec- 
tion with the existing state of Judaea. The energetic but cruel gov- 
ernment of Felix had goaded the disaffected Jews to desperation. In 
the preceding year (a. d. 57), the high-priest Jonathan had been 
murdered in the Temple ; an act followed by the organization of the 
bands of terrorists called Sicarii or Assassins. Next after this mur- 
der, Josephus relates the appearance of an Egyptian impostor, who 
led out 4000 of these Assassins into the Desert, and, returning at the 
head of 30,000 men, whom he had deluded into the belief that he was 
the Messiah, and that he would restore the kingdom to Judah, he en- 
camped on the Mount of Olives, threatening to overpower the Roman 
garrison, and promising that the walls of Jerusalem should fall down. 
He was attacked by Felix, and his followers dispersed or slain, the 
Egyptian himself escaping. 

The idea now occurred to Lysias that Paul was this Egyptian, and 
great was his surprise when his prisoner, just as they reached the 






ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 819 

entrance to the castle, addressed him in Greek, asking leave to speak 
with him. Paul removed his suspicion by telling him who he was : 
— " I am a Jew of Tarsus, in Silicia, a citizen of no mean city ; and, 
I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people." The permission 
was granted, and Paul, standing on the stairs, and having with a sign 
of his hand gained the silent attention of the people, began to address 
them : " Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence now made 
unto you." As soon as they heard that he spoke in Hebrew, that is, 
in the then current Aramaic dialect of Palestine, the silence became 
the more profound, and Paul had at length the opportunity, to gain 
which was one motive of his pressing on to Jerusalem, of addressing 
the angry Jews in his own justification. His defence consists of a 
simple recital of the events of his early life, his miraculous conversion, 
and a statement of his great commission from Christ to preach the 
Gospel to the Gentiles. The Jews, who despised the Gentiles, now 
refused to listen to him any longer, and breaking into cries of furious 
opposition threw dust into the air, and tore off their clothes as if 
about to stone him ; and the tribune, ignorant of the language in 
which Paul had spoken, could only suppose that he had given some 
strong ground for such indignant fury. To learn what this was, he 
brought him into the castle, and commanded him to be examined by 
scourging. The soldiers were already binding him with thongs to 
the post, when Paul calmly asked the centurion in command, " Is it 
lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned ? " 
The warning was forthwith carried by the centurion to the tribune, 
who, hastening to learn the truth from Paul, was more and more sur- 
prised to hear that the prisoner, on whom he had already inflicted the 
indignity of chains, was free-born, while he himself — doubtless as an 
imperial freedman — had only obtained the franchise for a large sum. 

Having now learned that the question at issue regarded the Jewish 
religion, the tribune summoned the chief priests and Sanhedrim to 
meet on the following day, when, having loosed Paul from his bonds, 
he placed him before them. We need not suppose that this was a 
regular legal proceeding. If, on the one hand, the commandant of 
the garrison had no power to convoke the Sanhedrim, on the other 
hand, he would not give up a Roman citizen to their judgment. As 
( it was, the affair ended in confusion, and with no semblance of a ju- 
dicial termination. St. Paul appears to have been put upon his 
defence ; and, with the peculiar habit, mentioned elsewhere also, of 
looking steadily when about to speak, he began to say — "Men and 
brethren, I have lived in all good conscience " — or, to give full force 



820 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of the original, " I have lived a conscientiously loyal life unto God, 
until this day," — when a scene was enacted which is most interesting 
in a historical as well as a personal point of view. 

Ananias, who presided over the Sanhedrim as high- 
priest, had been appointed to that office by Herod, king of 
Chalcis, in A. D. 48. In A. D. 52 he was sent to Rome by the prefect 
Ummidius Quadratus, to answer before Claudius on a charge of 
oppression brought against him by the Samaritans. The result is 
doubtful; but the best solution seems to be that Ananias was not 
formally deposed, but as, during his suspension, Jonathan had been 
appointed in his place, the latter had continued to exercise the office 
till his murder by the Sicarii in A. D. 57, when Ananias resumed his 
functions. The high-priest's character for violence and lawlessness 
suggests that a guilty conscience assumed the guise of zeal against 
blasphemy, when he at once interrupted Paul by ordering the by- 
standers to smite him on the mouth. " God shall smite thee, thou 
whited wall ! " exclaimed the Apostle ; " for sittest thou to judge me 
after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?" 
The by-standers, who seem to have hesitated to execute the high- 
priest's hasty order, now remonstrated with the Apostle, " Revilest 
thou God's high-priest?" Paul answered, "I did not know that 
Ananias was appointed by God to be an high-priest. But as he is 
invested with authority, it is unjust to revile him. God himself com- 
manded that no man should speak evil of the rulers of the people." 
Paul perceiving that the council consisted partly of Sadducees, who 
denied the resurrection from the dead, and partly of Pharisees, who 
affirmed it, cried aloud, "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son 
of a Pharisee, and am now brought before this tribunal for asserting 
the resurrection from the dead." 

This declaration threw the whole court into confusion, the Pharisees 
inclining to take sides with Paul, and the Sadducees demanding his 
punishment. The dissensions spread to the spectators, and produced 
such a commotion that the captain of the guard, to save Paul from 
being torn to pieces, took him back to the castle. During the night- 
God comforted him with a revelation that he should live, in spite of 
the malice of his enemies, to bear the gospel to Pome itself. 

The next day Paul's sister's son detected a plot on the part of the 
Jews to kill the Apostle, and accordingly the governor sent Paul to 
Csesarea, under a strong military escort, with letters to Felix, the 
Roman governor of that province, relating the whole transaction. 
Paul's accusers were also ordered to appear before Felix, who, finding 



ST. PAUL'S THIRD JOURNEY. 821 

that the Apostle was a native of Cilicia, told him he would determine 
the matter as soon as his accusers presented themselves. Meanwhile, 
he ordered Paul to be confined as a prisoner in the place called 
Herod's judgment hall. 

Soon after this Felix heard the case. Tertullus made an 
eloquent speech against Paul, charging him with heresy, 
sedition, and the profanation of the Temple ; but Paul replied with 
such force that Felix refused to pass any sentence until he could con- 
sult the governor of the castle at Jerusalem, who had first arrested 
Paul. He remanded the Apostle to prison, but allowed him to receive 
the visits and kind offices of his friends. 

Among those friends, besides Luke and Aristarchus, and the family 
of Philip the deacon, may have been Cornelius, the centurion, whom 
Peter had received into the Church, as the first Gentile convert, in 
that very garrison in which Paul was now in a centurion's custody. 
It seems to have been to gratify the curiosity of his Jewish wife 
Drusilla, the daughter of Herod Agrippa I., that, on his return to 
Caesarea after an absence, Felix again sent for Paul, to hear him con- 
cerning the faith in Christ. But the Apostle, who could at the proper 
time discourse with the most powerful arguments concerning Christian 
doctrine, now saw before him only the violent and unjust governor, 
with the paramour whom he had seduced from her husband Azizus, 
king of Emesa ; and he reasoned of righteousness, temperance and 
judgment to come. A licentious Roman officer, with a brother able 
to protect him at the imperial court, was not the man to be easily 
alarmed; but a more mighty force even than his dread of Caesar 
assailed his conscience; and he only retained the self-destructive 
power of warding off repentance by delay. " Felix trembled, and 
answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient 
season, I will call for thee." It is a trite comment, that the conveni- 
ent season never came; but the truth was worse than this. Felix 
often sent for Paul, and communed with him during the two years of 
his detention, but with no higher object than the sordid hope of being 
bribed to free him. 

In the following year, the city of Csesarea, where Paul was thus 
kept a prisoner, was the scene of one of the frequent and frightful 
tumults between the Jews and the Syrian Greeks, A. D. 59. Felix 
was denounced to the emperor for either ordering or conniving at a 
massacre of the Jews, and he was recalled to answer for his conduct 
at the same time that Domitius Corbulo succeeded Ummidius Quad- 
ratus as prefect of Syria. This was two full years after the beginning 



822 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of St. Paul's imprisonment in May, A. D. 58, and Porcius Festus, 
who accompanied Corbulo as procurator of Judaea, would reach his 
destination about July, A. D. 60. How the arrival of the new gover- 
nor obtained for Paul the hearing which Felix had so long postponed, 
and how the Apostle's appeal to Caesar led to his imprisonment at 
Home, will be related in the next chapter. 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 823 




CHAPTER XLI. 

BT. PAUL'S FIRST IMPRISONMENT AT ROME — FROM HIS HEARING BEFORE FES- 

TUS TO HIS RELEASE. 
[A. D. 60-63.] 

)| HE whole career of the Apostle Paul is an illustration of that 
special providence of which he himself was assured by a 
series of divine revelations. Many an outburst of indigna- 
tion has been provoked by the sordid injustice which kept 
him in prison for two years ; many a sigh of regret upon 
reading the sentence, " This man might have been set at liberty, if he 
had not appealed to Csesar." But, as Paul's transference to Rome as 
a prisoner " fell out for the furtherance of the Gospel " at 
th' very centre of Roman power, so his detention in Roman 
custody at Csesarea proved his protection not only from the murderous 
plots ( f the Jews, but from the bloody conflict between them and the 
Syrian Greeks in the very city where he was confined (a. d. 59). 
Nor is this the only reason that can be discovered for an interruption 
of two whole years in the last part of the Apostle's life. a As Paul 
might need the repose of preparation in Arabia, before he entered on 
his career, so his prison at Csesarea might be consecrated to the calm 
meditation, the less interrupted prayer, which resulted in a deeper 
experience and knowledge of the power of the Gospel. Nor need we 
assume that his active exertions for others were entirely suspended. 
' The care of all the churches ' might still be resting on him ; many 
messages, and even letters, of which we know nothing, may have 
been sent from Csesarea to brethren at a distance. And a plausible 
conjecture fixes this period and place for the writing of Luke's Gospel 
under the superintendence of the Apostle of the Gentiles." 

At length the great Corbulo succeeded Ummidius Quadratus as 
prefect of Syria ; and Felix, having been sent to Rome to answer the 
complaints of the Jews and Samaritans, was succeeded by Porcius 
Festus, whose arrival may be placed about the midsummer of A. d. 
60. The procurator gave an earnest of his honest vigor by going up 
from Csesarea to Jerusalem three days after his arrival. A new Gov- 
ernor, anxious to gain favor with his subjects, was naturally assailed 
with petitions; and so Festus was now met by the chief priests and 



824 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

elders with urgent informations and demands for judgment against 
Paul. They entreated as a favor that Festus would send for him to 
Jerusalem, while they had laid an ambush to kill him on the way. 
Festus, without seeing through their plot, defeated it by keeping to 
his duty as a magistrate : — " It is not the manner of the Romans to 
deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accu- 
sers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning 
the crime laid against him." So he told them that Paul should be 
kept at Csesarea, whither he ordered the accusers to accompany him. 
He returned thither after ten days, and on the next day Paul was 
placed before the tribunal. The charges brought against him by the 
Jews from Jerusalem were many and grievous according to their law ; 
but they were unable to prove them ; and Paul was content to protest 
his innocence, " Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against 
the temple, nor yet against Csesar, have I oiFended anything at all." 
The governor, fresh from Rome, and ignorant apparently of the 
interest which Christianity had excited even there, was surprised to 
hear nothing of the charges he had expected ; but that, as he con- 
temptuously tells Agrippa, they had certain questions against him of 
their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul 
affirmed to be alive — an incidental proof of what we have seen before, 
that the controversy between Paul and his accusers turned upon the 
resurrection. 

This theological complexion of the case gave Festus an excuse for 
the proposal, which he really made in order to gratify the Jews, when 
he asked Paul whether he would go to Jerusalem and there be judged 
before him of these matters. Enough had transpired already of the 
murderous plots of the Jews to put the Apostle on his guard ; and he 
had in his power a certain means of averting the danger of the gov- 
ernor's compliance — the Ojesarem appello — which was the ultimate 
safeguard of the Roman citizen. We cannot but suppose that a 
sudden inspiration opened his eyes to the path by which he might be 
carried to the long-desired goal of his hopes at Rome. Once more, 
as at Philippi and in the Antonia, he asserts his rights with a dignified 
composure, which rebuked the judge's vacillation and reminded him 
of his limited power: — " I stand at Caesars judgment-seat, where I 
ought to be judged : to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very 
well knowest. For if I be an offender, or have committed anything 
worthy of death, I refuse not to die : but if there be none of these 
things whereof they accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I 
appeal unto Caesar." These two bold words, uttered by a Roman 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 825 




PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA AND FESTUS. 



citizen, were a spell which a far less worthy magistrate would not 
have dared to resist; and Festus, after consulting with his assessors, 
had only to declare — " Thou hast appealed unto Caesar. Unto Ca?sar 
shalt thou go." It is hardly clear whether these abrupt words indi- 
cate the procurator's annoyance at having the decision taken out of 
his hands, in which he probably desired to do justice in the end, or 
his satisfaction at getting rid of a case difficult in itself, and likely to 
embroil him with the Jews at the very outset of his government. 



826 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The case before the procurator was now at an end ; and it only- 
remained to send the prisoner to Rome. While waiting for an 
opportunity, Festus had to draw up an account of the charge 
on which Paul was sent for trial ; and it was no easy matter 
to place a mere question of Jewish " superstition " before Nero in a 
satisfactory form. He was in this difficulty, when Agrippa and his 
sister Bernice arrived at Csesarea to congratulate the new governor. 
Several days were spent in ceremony and festivity before Festus men- 
tioned the case of Paul to Agrippa, who, being informed by the gov- 
ernor of all that had passed, expressed a desire to hear the man. On the 
following day, Agrippa and Bernice took their seats on the tribunal 
beside Festus, with that royal pomp to which Luke refers as an eye- 
witness, surrounded by the military tribunes and the chief men of the 
city ; and Paul, bound by a chain to his warder, was set before them. 
Not withholding his judgment that the prisoner had done nothing 
worthy of death, Festus explained the motive for this renewed hear- 
ing, namely, to avail himself of the advice of the king and the council 
as to what precise charge he ought to lay before Augustus : — " Where- 
fore I have brought him forth before you, and especially before thee, 
O king Agrippa, that, after examination had, I might have somewhat 
to write. For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and 
not withal to signify the crimes laid against him." Such was the 
occasion given to the Apostle to " bear the name of Jesus before Gen- 
tiles and before kings ;" and to this audience, composed of all that 
was most august both of the Jews and Romans at Csesarea, he pro- 
nounced the most memorable and impressive of his great apologies 
for Christian truth, and for his own mission as the Apostle to the 
Gentiles, a point on which he now fitly lays especial stress, while vin- 
dicating also his consistency as a faithful Jew. 

In this discourse, we have the second explanation from St. Paul 
himself of the manner in which he had been led, through his con- 
version, to serve the Lord Jesus instead of persecuting his disciples, 
and the third narrative of the Conversion itself. Speaking to Agrippa 
as to one thoroughly versed in the customs and questions prevailing 
among the Jews, Paul appeals to the well-known Jewish and even 
Pharisaical strictness of his youth and early manhood. He reminds 
the king of the great hope which continually sustained the worship 
of the Jewish nation, — the hope of a deliverer, promised by God him- 
self, who should be a conqueror of death. He had been led to see 
that this promise was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth; he proclaimed 
his resurrection to be the pledge of a new and immortal life. What 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 827 

was there in this of disloyalty to the traditions of his fathers ? Did 
his countrymen disbelieve in this Jesus as the Messiah ? So had he 
once disbelieved in hiin, and had thought it his duty to be earnest in 
hostility against his name. But his eyes had been opened ; he would 
tell how and when. The story of the Conversion is modified in this 
address as we might fairly expect it to be. We have seen that there 
is no absolute contradiction between the statements of this and the 
other narratives. The main points, — the light, the prostration, the 
voice from heaven, the instructions from Jesus, — are found in all 
three. But in this account, the words, " I am Jesus whom thou per- 
secutest," are followed by a fuller explanation, as if then spoken by 
the Lord, of what the work of the Apostle was to be. The other 
accounts defer this explanation to a subsequent occasion. But when 
we consider how fully the mysterious communication made at the 
moment of the Conversion included what was afterward conveyed, 
through Ananias and in other ways, to the mind of Paul, and how 
needless it was for Paul, in his present address before Agrippa, to 
mark the stages by which the whole fesson was taught, it seems 
merely captious to base upon the method of this account a charge of 
disagreement between the different parts of the history. They bear, 
on the contrary, a striking mark of genuineness in the degree in 
which they approach contradiction without reaching it. It is most 
natural that a story told on different occasions should be told differ- 
ently ; and if in such a case we find no contradiction as to the facts, 
we gain all the firmer impression of the substantial truth of the story. 
The particulars added to the former accounts by the present narrative 
are, that the words of Jesus were spoken in Hebrew, and that the 
first* question to Saul was followed by the saying, " It is hard for thee 
to kick against the goads." (This saying is omitted by the best 
authorities in the 9th chapter.) The language of the commission, 
which St. Paul says he received from Jesus, deserves close study, and 
will be found to bear a striking resemblance to a passage in Colos- 
sians. The ideas of light, redemption, forgiveness, inheritance and 
faith in Christ, belong characteristically to the Gospel which Paul 
preached among the Gentiles. Not less striking is it to observe the 
older terms in which he describes to Agrippa his obedience to the 
heavenly vision. He had made it his business, he says, to proclaim 
to all men " that they should repent and turn to God, and do works 
meet for repentance :" — words such as John the Baptist uttered, but 
not less truly Pauline. And he finally reiterates that the testimony 
on account of which the Jews sought to kill him was in exact agree- 



828 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

ment with Moses and the prophets. They had taught men to expect 
that the Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that 
should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people 
and to the Gentiles. Of such a Messiah Paul was the servant and 
preacher. 

At this point Festus began to apprehend what seemed to him a 
manifest absurdity. He interrupted the Apostle discourteously, but 
with a compliment contained in his loud remonstrance. " Thou art 
mad, Paul ; thy much learning is turning thee mad." The phrase 
to. jioMa ypdfifxara may possibly have been suggested by the allusion to 
Moses and the prophets ; but it probably refers to the books with 
which St. Paul had been supplied, and which he was known to study, 
during his imprisonment. As a biographical hint, this phrase is not 
to be overlooked. " I am not mad," replied Paul, " most noble 
Festus : they are words of truth and soberness which I am uttering." 
Then, with an appeal of mingled dignity and solicitude, he turns to 
the king. He was sure the king understood him. " King Agrippa, 
believest thou the prophet*? I know that thou believest." The 
answer of Agrippa can hardly have been the serious and encouraging 
remark of our English version. Literally rendered, it appears to be, 
You are briefly persuading me to become a Christian ; and it is gene- 
rally supposed to have been spoken ironically. " I would to God," 
is Paul's earnest answer, " that whether by a brief process or by a 
long one, not only thou but all who hear me to-day might become 
such as I am, with the exception of these bonds:" — he was wearing a 
chain upon the hand he held up in addressing them. With this 
prayer, it appears the conference ended. Festus and the king, with 
their companions, consulted together, and came to the conclusion that 
the accused was guilty of nothing that deserved death or imprison- 
ment. And Agrippa's final answer to the inquiry of Festus was, 
" This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed 
unto Caesar." 

At each step in the record of the Acts, we have found some fresh 
occasion to admire the exact knowledge and truthfulness of the 
writer, as confirmed by every incidental allusion that he has occasion 
to make. Indeed, if the life of St. Paul is of itself a sufficient moral 
evidence of the truth of Christianity, the narrative of his labors by 
St. Luke is a critical evidence no less conclusive. And as the former 
has been summed up in the narrow issue of Paul's conversion, so we 
might even be content to stake the latter on the story of his voyage 
and shipwreck. It is just where a landsman makes the most ridicur 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 829 

lous exposure of his ignorance, that the historian has ventured on 
details as minute as those of a Marryat or a Cooper, but with the 
addition of other allusions to matters of fact, as to places, seasons, 
winds, and currents; without, in either case, exposing one single 
flaw to the keenest professional criticism. Of this there can be but 
one explanation : that, being an eye-witness of all the incidents, and 
an observer as intelligent as he was honest, he simply recorded in 
plain words what he saw and heard. Nor can we doubt that the 
Spirit, under whose guidance he wrote, led him to place these minute 
details upon the record, expressly to aiford a test of that record itself; 
and we have reason for devout thankfulness that the test has been 
most thoroughly applied, and most satisfactorily borne, in our own 
time. The result of this investigation has been that several errors in 
the received version have been corrected, that the course of the 
voyage has been laid down to a very minute degree with great 
certainty, and that the account in the Acts is shown to have been 
written by an accurate eye-witness, not himself a professional seaman, 
but well acquainted with nautical matters. 

The Roman empire had no packet service, nor were ships 
of war usually employed for the transport of prisoners from 
the provinces to Rome. But for such a purpose, as well as for ordi- 
nary passengers, ample opportunities Avere furnished by the great lines 
of commercial traffic over the seas which had been long since effec- 
tually cleared of pirates. There were the main lines, of which the 
most important, in the East, was that of the vessels that carried the 
corn of Egypt from Alexandria to Italy, and particularly to the port 
of Puteoli ; and it was in two such ships that Paul made the chief 
portions of his voyage. Then there was the coasting trade, which (in 
the Levant) was chiefly conducted by the Greeks of Asia Minor, of 
whose vessels we have already seen Paul making use. It was in such 
a ship, belonging to Adramyttium, that he now set sail, with other 
prisoners, under the care of Julius, a centurion of the Augustan 
cohort, whose conduct in the sequel entitles him to a place among the 
military worthies of the New Testament. The number of the pris- 
oners appears to have been considerable; and, from the then state of 
Judaea, we may infer that there were among them leaders of the Si- 
carii, and other fierce fanatics, who would be no friendly company for 
Paul. But he was cheered by the society of " the beloved physician," 
and of the Thessalonian Aristarchus, his constant fellow-traveller, who 
had accompanied him from Macedonia, and now became his fellow- 
prisoner at Rome. That the voyage was commenced about the end 



830 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of summer, in order to reach Italy before winter, is evident from the 
subsequent mention of the Great Fast. 

The ship, in which Julius embarked with his prisoner, intended to 
touch at several places on the coast of proconsular Asia, on the way 
to her own port of Adramyttium ; but an opportunity might offer, 
even sooner, of finding some vessel bound direct for Italy, at one of 
the Lycian ports (Patara or Myra) or at Cnidus, where the lines of 
traffic met. Launching from Csesarea, they touched on the following 
day at Sidon, where, by the kindness of Julius, who doubtless already 
saw the difference between Paul and his other prisoners, he was per- 
mitted to visit his friends and received their affectionate care. Here 
the delays of the voyage began with contrary winds, — doubtless the 
west and northwest winds which prevail during the late summer, di- 
rectly in the teeth of their proper course for Patara or Cnidus, past 
the south of Cyprus. So they sailed under the lee of that island, and 
through the seas of Cilicia and Pamphylia ; where, beside the land 
winds moderated by the shelter of the chain of Taurus, they would 
have the aid of the current which sets northwest and west past the 
eastern point of Cyprus and along the south coast of Asia Minor into 
the iEgean. Thus they reached the port of Myra in Lycia, where 
they fell into the great line of the Egyptian corn-trade, and found a 
corn-ship of Alexandria bound for Italy ; and to this vessel Julius 
transferred his prisoners. 

The voyage was very slow as far as Cnidus, at the southwest head- 
land of Caria, where "they lost the advantages of a favoring current, 
a weather-shore, and smooth water, and encountered the full force of 
the adverse wind as they opened the -ZEgean." They made Cnidus 
with difficulty, and, finding it impossible to pursue their direct course 
for Cythera (off the southern point of Peloponnesus) against the north- 
west wind, they ran down to the southward, and, doubling Salmone, 
the eastern headland of Crete, they beat up with difficulty under the 
lee of the island, as far as the fine harbor, near Lasaea, which still 
bears its ancient name of the Fair Havens. Beyond this the coast 
runs out to the south in the headland of Cape Ifatala, on doubling 
which they would have met the full force of the northwest wind over 
an open sea and on a lee shore ; so that they were altogether wind- 
bound, and remained here a long time. 

Meanwhile the navigation had grown dangerous, for it was past 
the season of the great Jewish Fast (the Day of Atonement), which 
fell this year exactly at the autumnal equinox (Sept. 23d), the limit 
fixed by ancient writers to sea voyages. Paul now interposed the 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 831 

first of his warnings, in terms which imply that he spoke under divine 
guidance, as well as with much former experience of " perils in the 
sea :" " Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much 
damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives." But 
the centurion, with whom the decision rested, preferred the judgment 
of the owner and the master of the ship. Fair Havens was incoin- 
modius to winter in, and the majority advised attempting to run for 
Phcenix, a harbor sheltered alike from the northwest and southwest 
winds, and described by modern sailors as the only secure harbor, in 
all winds, on the south coast of Crete. 

It was about the 18th of October when the mariners were tempted 
out of Fair Havens by a soft south wind, which would enable them 
to double Cape Matala (only 5 miles distant), and then to make a fair 
run of 35 miles to Port Phoenix. They had already weathered the 
cape, and were keeping close under the land, when, without a mo- 
ment's warning, an east northeast wind came sweeping down the gul- 
lies of Mount Ida, " descending from the lofty hills in heavy squalls 
and eddies" with all the fury of a typhoon. The sailors, accustomed 
to those seas, recognized their dreaded enemy by its well-known name, 
Euroclydon. Unable to bear up into the wind, they could only let 
the ship scud before the gale. 

In this course they were carried under the lee of a small island 
named Clauda y about 20 miles from the coast of Crete. Under its 
shelter they got the boat on board, always a difficult matter in a gale, 
and especially when it was doubtless full of water. This could only 
be done at all by bringing the ship's head round to the wind, a fact 
of which the importance will presently appear. The next preparation 
is one of the most interesting points in the whole narrative ; " they 
used helps, undergirding the ship." The ancient ships were pecu- 
liarly liable to loosen their frame-work and start their planks, not 
only from the imperfections of their build, but from the strain upon 
the hull caused by the single mast with its large square-sail. Hence 
the frequent foundering at sea, of which we have other cases in the 
shipwreck of Jonah, and in that of Josephus on his way to Rome four 
years later, which forms a striking parallel to the voyage of St. Paul. 
As a precaution against this danger, ships were provided with cables 
or chains, which could be passed around the hull at right angles (not, 
as some have supposed, from stem to stern), as " helps" to its strength, 
the ends being secured on deck ; and this was the process described as 
"undergirding the ship." Another motive for this precaution was 
the risk that, in that narrow part of the Mediterranean, the ship 



2 

— 

- 

2 




PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 833 

should be driven across to the Libyan coast, and fall upon the quick- 
sands of the Great Syrtis, where the undergirding would delay her 
going to pieces. 

To keep the vessel from this dangerous course, and to make her 
more steady, they " lowered the gear, and so were driven." This can- 
not mean that the ship scudded before the wind ; for that course would 
have driven her right on the Syrtis, if she had not first been swamped 
by the sea breaking over her stern ; but that she lay to under a storm- 
sail with her starboard (or right) side to the wind, the very position 
in which she had been brought up to the wind to take the boat on 
board. This manoeuvre would keep her head well off the African 
coast, and cause her to drift a little to the north of west at the rate of 
about a mile and a half an hour, or thirty-six miles a day. The next 
day they began to lighten ship, by throwing overboard all that could 
be spared ; and on the day after, the passengers helped to cast out 
the spare gear that had already been sent down on deck. 

All was now done that the best seamanship of that age could sug- 
gest, and there followed the far more trying interval of suspense for 
several days, the tempest continuing at its height, and neither sun nor 
stars appearing to give them an idea of their position. All hope of 
safety was now abandoned. "No one," says Dr. Howson, " who has 
never been in a leaking ship in a continued gale can know what is 
suffered under such circumstances. The strain both of mind and 
body — the incessant demand for the labor of all the crew — the terror 
of the passengers — the hopeless working at the pumps — the laboring 
of the ship's frame and cordage — the driving of the storm — the be- 
numbing effect of the cold and wet — make up a scene of no ordinary 
confusion, anxiety, and fatigue. ... To this despair was added a 
further suffering from want of food, in consequence of the injury done 
to the provisions, and the impossibility of preparing any regular meal. 
Hence we see the force of the phrase which alludes to what a casual 
reader might suppose an unimportant part of the suffering, that there 
was much abstinence." 

But under that dark sky, and in that hopelessly drifting ship, there 
appeared the light of joy and life ; for it held no Jonah, fleeing from 
duty, but a Paul bound in spirit to testify for God also at Rome. As 
in so many a former crisis of his life, a vision was vouchsafed to him 
in the night ; and, when another day broke, as dark and hopeless as 
those before, he announced the good news to the sailors and passengers 
gathered round him on the deck. After gently reminding them of the 
claim which his former rejected advice gave him to their belief, he 
53 



834 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

went on in the kindly words : — " And now I exhort you to be of 
good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but 
of the ship. For there stood by me this night the Angel of God, 
whose I am and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be 
brought before Caesar : and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail 
with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God, 
that it shall be even as it was told me. Howbeit, we must be cast 
upon a certain island." The same power that gave this assurance 
could have caused the ship to arrive safe in port with her cargo as 
well as her crew; but it is the law of God's providential discipline 
that the deliverances he grants from the consequences of our errors 
should be at the expense of that degree of suffering but for which they 
would pass unvalued, and that those who have received such deliver- 
ances should remain 

" Thankful for all God takes away, 
Humbled by all he gives." 

The storm still raged with unabated fury, and the ship was drifting 
in the sea of Adria y when, on the fourteenth night after their depar- 
ture from Clauda, some of those indications which a sailor's ear detects 
so quickly — doubtless, as we shall soon see, the roar of breakers — gave 
a warning of land near, which the soundings confirmed. Fearing to 
foe driven on the rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and 
"longed for day-break." For in such a storm, to anchor off a lee 
shore is a forlorn hope ; and the sailors conspired to desert the ship 
by letting down the boat, on the pretence of casting more anchors out 
of the prow. Paul once more interposed with words which furnish a 
marked illustration of the working of human effort with divine de- 
crees. These sailors were still wanted for the last act of seamanship 
in the morning ; and the same voice that had promised, in God's name, 
that not a life should be lost, now said to Julius, " Except these abide 
in the ship ye cannot be saved." The soldiers cut the ropes by 
which the sailors were already lowering the boat, and the last visible 
means of safety was swept away into the darkness. 

All were now shut up to the unknown escape which the Apostle 
had promised ; and this last act of decision seems to have given him 
that ascendancy over the crew which he had already secured over the 
soldiers and all the rest. As the day began to break, he gathered 
around him his fellow- voyagers (276 souls in all), and besought them 
to eot after their fourteen days' fast, as it was needful for their salva- 
tion to be strengthened for the last exertions ; and once more he 
assured them, " there shall not an hair fall from the head of any one 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 835 

of you." " When he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave 
thanks to God in the presence of them all; and when he had broken 
it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, and they also 
took some food." Surely the Evangelist's use of language so similar 
to the Gospel record of the Lord's Supper indicates more than a 
"grace before meat," and goes far to justify our putting the highest 
sense upon the words — " God hath given thee — as a gift of grace 
— all those that sail with thee." Dr. Howson observes of Paul's 
former address : — " Sailors, however reckless they may be in the 
absence of danger, are peculiarly open to religious impressions ; 
and we cannot doubt that they gathered anxiously round the Apostle 
and heard his words as an admonition and encouragement from the 
other world, that they were nerved for the toil and difficulty which 
was immediately before them, and prepared thenceforward to listen to 
the Jewish prisoner as to a teacher sent with a divine commission ; " 
and so we venture to regard that breaking of bread is an eucharistic 
feast, in which — as we infer from the numbers being mentioned just 
here — none on board failed to share. 

They ate with a good appetite, and thus refreshed in body, mind, 
and soul, they used the first dawn to lighten the ship by casting out 
the cargo of wheat into the sea, " to enable them by a lighter draft 
of water either to run into any small harbor, or at least closer in with 
dry land, should they be obliged to run the ship on the rocks or 
beach." This took some time; and now that it was broad day- 
light, the sailors could examine the shore. At first they did not 
recognize it as known land ; but they saw what appeared to be a 
creek or bay, with a smooth beach, into which they decided, if possi- 
ble, to run the ship. 

What followed is explained by looking at the spot, thus 
' far unknown to them, but now identified beyond any rea- 
sonable doubt. The perverse ingenuity which, misled first 
by the word Adria (ver. 27), proceeded to discover a Melita high 
up the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, raised a controversy which 
has been completely settled. The island was unquestionably Malta; 
and it is almost equally certain that the scene of the shipwreck was 
that to which local tradition has given the name of St. Paul's Bay, 
on the northeast coast of the island. The direction of the ship's head 
when she lay to off Clauda, and her estimated rate of drift, were just 
such as to carry her to Malta in the fourteen days, and she could 
make St. Paul's Bay without first touching any other part of the 
isjand, which from this point trends to the southeast. A glance at 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHART OF PART OF THE COAST OF MALTA. 



the chart is of itself enough to show how her course was guided by 
that special providence which so plainly announced * itself to Paul. 
The ship was borne in the darkness so near to Koura Point, the 
southeast headland of the bay, that the breakers striking its rocks 
gave the warning to anchor just in time to avoid striking on the 
opposite shore; and the soundings are precisely those mentioned in the 
narrative. She anchored off the east point of the islet of Salmonetta, 
which would appear from that point of view to join the mainland, 
with its beach of sand or mud. 

The preparations to run in the ship sustain the character of the 
Alexandrian mariners for seamanship. " ^Yhile cutting the anchors 
adrift, they unloosed the lashings with which the rudder had been 
secured, that they might steer freely, and hoisted the foresail, both to 
steady the vessel's course and to press her further on upon the land. 
These three things were done simultaneously (<*««), and there were a 
sufficient number of hands on board." Thus they drove right ashore, 
stem on, and the bow stuck fast on the muddy beach. But then it 
proved that the spot they had mistaken for the bottom of a creek was 
at the mouth of the little strait separating the islet of Salmonetta from 
the mainland, "a place where two seas met." The swell of the open 
sea, rolling in from the north through this channel, dashed the 
hinder-part of the ship to pieces ; but the fore-part, fixed " upright 
and immovable," afforded a refuge to the voyagers while preparing 
to escape to shore. A new danger now arose from the savage temper 
of the Roman soldiers, who would have killed the prisoners, lest any 
of them should swim ashore and escape. Even the centurion would 
probably have seen nothing strange in such an act ; but, for the sake 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 837 

of saving Paul, he prevented its execution ; and, assuming the com- 
mand with that military discipline which we have so often seen 
triumphant over the confusion of a shipwreck, Julius ordered that 
those who could swim should first plunge into the sea and get to 
land ; while the rest followed as best they could, some on spars, and 
some on pieces of the wreck : " and so it came to pass that they all 
escaped safe to land." 

As to Paul himself, it was not the first time that he had had such 
an escape from even greater dangers. Long before this time he tells 
the Corinthians of his three shipwrecks, in one of which he had 
passed " a night and a day on the deep," floating about probably on a 
spar, like Josephus when shipwrecked in this very Adrian Sea. Nor 
will it be out of place here to observe how, with this experience, and 
ministering so constantly among sea-faring Greeks, he makes a most 
impressive though unfrequent use of nautical images. The fate of 
those apostates -who, swerving from the direct course of good con- 
science and faith unfeigned, which guides to perfect love, have " made 
shipwreck concerning faith," may be contrasted with the Apostle's 
repeated avowal uttered in the port of Miletus, as he was hastening 
on his voyage to Jerusalem, that he had never " furled his sails in 
the onward course of declaring all the counsel of God :" and we may 
well suppose that the remembrance of the night when his ship rode 
out the storm in the Maltese bay, with her straining cables passed 
out into the darkness, suggested the image of the Christian's sole but 
certain hope, " which we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and 
steadfast, and which entereth into that which is within the veil." 

And now, like the shipwrecked mariners, we are once more on 
firm land, after this intricate but most interesting voyage. They had 
not recognized the land at first, but — says St. Luke — " When we had 
escaped, then we discovered that the island was called Melita." 
Malta was at this time a dependency of the province of Sicily, gov- 
erned by an officer who is mentioned on inscriptions by the very title 
given to him by St. Luke, of Primus. From its position in the 
Mediterranean, and the excellence of its harbors, Melita has always 
been important both in commerce and war. It was a settlement of 
the Phoenicians at an early period, and their language, in a corrupted 
form, continued to be spoken there in St. Paul's day. From the 
Carthaginians it passed to the Romans in the Second Punic War. It 
was famous for its honey and fruits, for its cotton fabrics, for excel- 
lent building-stone, and for a well-known breed of dogs. A few 
years before St. Paul's visit, corsairs from his native province of 



838 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Cilicia made Melita a frequent resort. This one fact is enough to 
prove that the island was then thinly peopled, and consequently it 
may have been well-wooded. The extraordinary increase of its 
population in modern times accounts for the disappearance of many 
indigenous animals that once harbored in its forests, and disposes of 
the objection that no venomous snakes are now found in the island. 

The inhabitants received the shipwrecked mariners with kindness, 
and kindled a fire, which was most needful in the cold and rain. 
Paul was helping to gather sticks, and had just laid a bundle on the 
fire, when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened on to his hand. 
Possessed with a superstition, not extinct in our day, about the safety 
from one death of those who deserve another, and knowing Paul to 
be a prisoner, the natives said among themselves, "At all events this 
man is a murderer, whom, saved from the sea, justice suffereth not to 
live." But when, after Paul had quietly shaken off the reptile into 
the fire, they watched a long time in vain to see him swell or fall 
down dead, they changed their minds and said that he was a god, — 
a conclusion the more natural from the belief of a people of Eastern 
origin in serpent-worship and serpent-charming. The incident not 
only gave Paul that ascendancy over the people which we well know 
how he would use, but it would naturally attract the attention of 
Publius, the primate of the island, whose estates were in the neighbor- 
hood. He received the Apostle's party with courteous hospitality ; 
and was rewarded by the cure of his father, who lay ill of fever and 
dysentery, through the prayer of Paul with the laying on of his hands. 
The fame of the miracle spread through the island, and others who 
had diseases came and were healed. We cannot doubt that these 
miracles were followed by the preaching and belief of the Gospel, 
through the winter months, during which Paul and his companions 
were detained in Malta by the suspension of navigation. His success 
is attested by the honors paid to him in the island, and the supplies 
with which he was loaded on his departure. 

After a detentiou of three months, Julius placed his pris- 

' oners on board another Alexandrian ship, the " Castor and 
a. d. 61. . ... 

Pollux," which had wintered in the island. About the be- 
ginning of February (a. d. 61) they sailed first to Syracuse, where 
they remained three days; and thence they beat up to Rhegium on 
the Italian side of the straits of Messina. After a day's waiting for 
the weather, a fair south wind sprang up, and carried them on the fol- 
lowing day to their destination at Puteoli, one of the chief ports for 
the corn-trade, and therefore for the landing of passengers. As might 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 839 

have been expected at a'port in such constant communication with the 
East, they found here Christian brethren, at whose desire Paul spent 
a week with them, the centurion being evidently eager to show him 
unbounded courtesy — " And so went on to Rome." 

These words imply that they followed the usual route trodden by 
so many travellers — the Appian Road. How many travellers must 
have looked down upon the Apostle and his escort with the same feel- 
ings with which we regard the weary, dismal march of a chained gang 
of convicts; little dreaming that he came a truer conqueror than any 
general who had led his legions along that road to enter Rome in tri- 
umph. He had another greeting before his journey's end. "The 
Italian Christians had long been looking for a visit from the famous 
Apostle, though they had not expected to see him arrive thus, a pris- 
oner in chains, hardly saved from shipwreck " (Howson). The stay 
at Puteoli had given time for the news of his arrival to be sent to 
Rome ; and the Christians of that city sent to meet him as far as the 
stations of Appii Forum and the Three Taverns. This double wel- 
come was the earnest that Paul's long desire, both to preach the 
Gospel at Rome and to have fellowship with the Church already 
founded there, was now to be fulfilled ; and, when he saw them, he 
thanked God, and took courage. 

It must be remembered that this whole journey was made in cus- 
tody of the centurion, who, on reaching Rome, delivered up his pris- 
oners to the prefect of the Prsetorian Guard, who was at this time the 
celebrated Burrus. The report of Julius, and in some degree probably 
the interest already excited about Christianity at the imperial court, 
procured special favor for St. Paul. Though still, like state prisoners 
even of the highest rank (as in the case of Agrippa under Tiberius), 
having one arm bound to the soldier who kept him night and day, 
with that chain to which he makes touching allusions, he was suffered 
to dwell by himself in his own hired house, of course within the pre- 
cincts of the Prcetorium, and what he valued far more — to receive 
visitors and discourse freely with them of the Gospel. 

Beginning here also with his own nation, the Apostle, three days 
after his arrival, invited the chief men among the Jews to come to 
him, and, addressing them as brethren, he freely explained to them 
his present position. Though innocent of any crime against the Jew- 
ish law or customs, he had been given at Jerusalem into the hands of 
the Romans, and when they were ready to acquit him, the opposition 
of the Jews had constrained him to appeal to Caesar. He was now at 
Rome, not to accuse his nation, but a prisoner, " bound with this 



840 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




RUINS OF THE COLISEUM, AT ROME. 



chain," to answer for his faith in " the hope of Israel." Therefore 
had he invited them to this conference. The Jews replied, that they 
had received no letters from Judaea about him, nor had any of the 
brethren coming thence spoken any harm of him. As for this sect 
(or " heresy "), they knew that it was everywhere spoken against : — a 
phrase which seems to betray the germs of that ill-will which so soon 
broke out, but which may have been at first suppressed by their own 
curiosity as well as by St. Paul's courteous bearing. They named a 
day to give him a full hearing, and came in large numbers to his 
lodging. 

From the hour of admission in the morning, till the closing of the 
gates at evening, did Paul " expound and testify the kingdom of God, 
persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and 
out of the prophets." His method was the same that it had ever 
been, from the day when he opened his mouth in the synagogue of 
the Pisidian Antioch. And so was the result. Some indeed be- 
lieved; but others believed not; and these were clearly the most. 
They went away disputing with one another; and the interview, 
which Paul had begun with that ardent desire for their salvation 
which had already breathed in his Epistle, was closed with the same 
prophetic denunciation with which he had sorrowfully followed up 
that utterance of his love, — the words of Isaiah, which Christ himself 
had applied to the unbelieving nation, whose every sense was wilfully 
closed to the truth : — the five gates of Mansoul blockaded against 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 841 

Emmanuel, "And wisdom at each entrance quite shut out." So he 
once more repeated the announcement that he had so often made be- 
fore : — " Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is 
sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." His last warnings 
were not altogether in vain ; for after the Jews had left him, " they 
had much reasoning among themselves " — not only disputation, but in- 
quiry, concerning what they had heard. 

Here, so far as the Scripture narrative is concerned, the curtain falls 
upon the contest of Jewish unbelief against the things that con- 
cerned their salvation. And this we incline to regard as the very 
reason why the history of the Acts breaks off. As the narrative 
which illustrates the command of Jesus to his Apostles, to " preach 
the Gospel to the whole world, beginning at Jerusalem," it opens with 
the opening of that commission at the religious centre of the world ; 
it traces the successive offers to the Jews of Judaea, Samaria and the 
Dispersion; to proselytes and Hellenists, in all the provinces that 
they frequented ; and, it shows how their general disbelief caused the 
Gentiles to be received step by step into their place of privilege ; till 
the Apostle, bringing back the offerings of those Gentile converts to 
bless his countrymen at Jerusalem, was finally rejected by them, and 
sent in chains to Rome. There, in the capital of the world, the 
unbelief of the last section of the Jewish family, to whom he revealed 
their Messiah, completed the first stage in the history of the diffusion 
of Christianity, at which the mass of the Jewish race are, for the time, 
cut off from the kingdom of God. 

They are not, however, finally left in this fallen state. If the last 
recorded words of the Apostle's living voice proclaimed at Rome 
their present sentence, the enduring records of his pen, gathering up 
the substance of the ancient promises, had already embodied, in 
writing to the Church of Rome, that prophetic announcement of their 
restoration, the mystery of which remains to be fulfilled, and those 
three wonderful chapters of the Epistle to the Romans may be re- 
garded as a supplement to the Acts. The spread of the Gospel over 
the purely heathen portion of the world belongs to the new chain of 
history which comes down to our own time, and the end of which 
will be found linked with the fulfilment of the promises concerning 
the Jews. Of this all that St. Luke deems it necessary to record is 
the happy commencement of Paul's labors in the capital, where " he 
dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that 
came in unto him ; preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching 
those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence 
(or boldness of speech), no man forbidding him." 



842 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

These are the last words of the Acts. This history of the planting 
of the kingdom of Christ in the world brings us down to the time 
when the Gospel was openly proclaimed by the Apostle in the Gen- 
tile capital, and stops short of the mighty convulsion which was 
shortly to pronounce that kingdom established as the divine common- 
wealth for all men. The work of St. Paul belongs to the preparatory 
period. He was not to live through the time when the Son of Man 
came in the destruction of the Holy City and Temple, and in the 
throes of the New Age. The most significant part of his work was 
accomplished, when in the Imperial City he had declared his Gospel 
" to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." Bi his career is not 
abruptly closed. Before he himself fades out of our sight in the 
twilight of ecclesiastical tradition, we have letters written by himself 
which contribute some particulars to his external biography, and give 
us a far more precious insight into his convictions and sympathies. 

St. Paul's Imprisonment at Rome lasted two full yc ; ; nor is it 
difficult to account for the delay of his hearing before the emperor. 
It was necessary to the prosecution of such a case that the accusers 
should attend in person ; and that they had not yet arrived is clear 
from the statement of the Roman Jews. In the first year of Paul's 
imprisonment,, an embassy was sent from Jerusalem to Rome, headed 
by Ishmael the high-priest and Helcias the treasurer of the Temple, 
concerning the triple dispute between the Jews, Agrippa, and the 
Procurator, about the Temple wall. If they were also charged with 
the case against St. Paul, they would have little encouragement or 
motive to its active prosecution. The success of their principal 
object, through the mediation of Poppaea — who was a Jewish prose- 
lyte as well as Nero's mistress — doubtless exhausted all their influence 
with the emperor, who seems to have detained them at Rome in a 
spirit of suspicion. Nor could they hope, from that sense of justice 
which Nero brought to bear upon cases in which his passions were 
not excited, any reversal of the decision virtually pronounced by 
Felix. But the pretext of bringing up their witnesses from all the 
eastern provinces, and the forms of procedure in appeals to Caesar, 
would give ample opportunities of delay ; and they would be glad at 
least to keep Paul a prisoner. 

Thus, through adversity and injustice, Paul obtained the fulfilment 
of his earnest desire " to preach the Gospel to them that are at Rome 
also." He tells us of the spiritual children whom he had begotten in 
his chains ; of his converts among Caesar's household ; and in one pas- 
sage he gives a vivid description of the interest excited on behalf of 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 843 

the Gospel by his state and labors. He comforts his faithful and loving 
converts at Philippi, who now, as in the beginning of their Christian 
profession, were zealous in ministering to his wants, with the news 
that the troubles in which they sympathized with him " had fallen out 
rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel." So manifest had it be- 
come, in the Prsetorium and elsewhere, that the cause of his imprison- 
ment was for Christ, that even his bonds made other Christian brethren 
venture to speak the word more freely and fearlessly. The very 
Judaizers took courage to preach their version of the Gospel in their 
usual spirit of personal hostility to the Apostle, hoping to add to the 
affliction of those bonds which prevented his coining forward to refute 
them. But Paul knew that his controversy with them was ended, and 
he magnanimously rejoices that even they helped to make known the 
name of Christ. 

Meanwhile, amid the restraint, humiliation, and even pain of being 
constantly chained to a soldier, he was comforted by the society of 
some of his most attached disciples. Luke shared the greater part, 
at least, of his imprisonment; and Timothy, of whose presence on 
the voyage to Rome we have no indication, seems to have joined him 
there at a later period. That ever honorable title of his "fellow- 
prisoners " is applied to Aristarchus of Thessalonica, who had been 
Paul's companion from Philippi, and to Epaphras, a Colossian. In 
the same salutation with these, and in close connection with Luke, 
appear two names peculiarly interesting. Mark is mentioned as 
" cousin to Barnabas," as if expressly to remove all doubt as to his 
identity, and at the same time to assure us that the breach caused by 
his departure from Perga had been entirely healed ; and he is joined 
with Luke and Demas, as the fellow-laborers of the Apostle, in an 
association peculiarly touching from the contrast in which the three 
names afterward stand : Luke, steadfast from first to last ; Mark, who 
had failed in the first trial, ardently desired as " profitable for the 
ministry ;" Demas dismissed with the sorrowful sentence which has 
passed into a by-word. With these may be mentioned Tychicus of 
Asia, who had been, with Aristarchus, the Apostle's companion from 
Corinth, and who now carried back to his native province those Epis- 
tles which form the great enduring work of Paul's imprisonment. 

For, so long as he lived, whether free to travel or shut up in prison, 
Paul would not resign the daily " care of all the churches." One 
means he had of promoting their welfare daily and hourly — the con- 
stant and earnest prayer > which his Epistles prove to have been a chief 
occupation of his solitude. But he was not shut out from intercourse 



844 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

with the churches themselves. Now that he was tied down to one 
spot, but free to speak and write to whom he pleased, he would be the 
more earnest in making use of that mode of impression in which he 
had always excelled, chastened by the solemn sadness natural to a 
prisoner advanced in age. The four Epistles, which are perhaps but 
some among many that he wrote from Rome, are linked together by a 
striking resemblance of tone, thought, and argument, as well as by 
internal marks which place the time of their composition beyond rea- 
sonable doubt. They were all written toward the latter part of his 
imprisonment at Rome, for all refer to the expectation of his release ; 
and those to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, were 
somewhat earlier than that to the Philippians. The three former were 
sent to Asia by the same messengers, their salutations exhibit nearly 
the same names, and, besides their general likeness, those to the two 
churches contain identical passages, such as naturally occur in letters 
written by the same person at the same time. They were written after 
Paul had been long enough at Rome for the Philippians to have heard 
of his imprisonment, and to have sent relief to him by the hands of 
Epaphroditus, who was now with him. The interval before the return 
of Epaphroditus, bearing the letter to the Philippians, has to be ex- 
tended so as to not only embrace his dangerous illness, but to allow 
for the news of it having been carried to the Philippians, and for the 
report of their sorrow at the tidings having been brought back to 
Rome. As also the expectations of a speedy issue of his cause are 
expressed more distinctly in this Epistle, and Paul forms his plans for 
coming to Philippi, its date may be safely placed just before the expi- 
ration of his two years' imprisonment, in the spring of A. D. 63 ; and 
then, allowing for the necessary interval, the three others may be re- 
ferred to the autumn of 62. Some, however, assign an earlier date to 
the three, from a supposed contrast between the mildness of the earlier 
part of Paul's imprisonment and the severer suffering which seems to 
be reflected in the Epistle to the Philippians : a change which might 
be due to the death of Burrus (in January, A. D. 62) and the declining 
influence of Seneca. 

Colossi is a place that has not yet appeared in the re- 
cords of St. Paul's labors. It was an ancient but somewhat 
decayed city of Phrygia, on the high-road between Ephesus and the 
Euphrates. It stood on the river Lycus, in the upper basin of the 
Maeander, and in the immediate neighborhood of Laodicea and Hiera- 
polis, cities by whose growth it had been eclipsed. The foundation 
of a church here may have been one of the indirect results of Paul's 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 845 

ministry in Asia, and now he had heard with deep gratitude of the 
fruits of faith and love wrought among the Colossians by the word of 
Gospel truth, which had come to them as it was taught by Epaphras, 
a native of the city, who, having been to them a faithful minister of 
Christ, had now brought to Paul in his imprisonment the glad tidings 
of their love in the Spirit. 

The Epistle to the Colossians was doubtless called forth by the 
tidings brought by Epaphras, and was sent to the Colossians by the 
hands of Tychicus. It was intended to congratulate the Church 
there upon its zeal and piety, and to warn it of dangerous heresies. 

But another person had come to Rome from Colossse about the 
same time, and now returned as a sharer in the mission of Tychicus. 
This was Onesimus, who is described in the Epistle, as " a faithful 
and beloved brother, who is one of you," that is, evidently, a Colos- 
sian. Such was the kindly and honorable introduction with which 
the Apostle sent back to Colossse the man who had left the city and 
fled to Rome as the runaway slave of Philemon, a wealthy and dis- 
tinguished member of the Colossian Church ; and with him he sent 
that brief but pregnant Letter to Philemon^ which contains the germs 
of the eternal principles of Gospel morality in relation to slavery. It 
is evident, from the letter to him, that Philemon was a man of pro- 
perty and influence, since he is represented as the head of a numerous 
household, and as exercising an expensive liberality toward his friends 
and the poor in general. He was indebted to Paul as the medium of 
his personal participation in the Gospel, as the Apostle reminds him 
in that most expressive phrase, " not to say to thee how thou owest 
unto me even thine own self besides." His character, as shadowed 
forth in the Epistle to him, is one of the noblest which the sacred 
record makes known to us. He was full of faith and good works, 
was docile, confiding, grateful, was forgiving, sympathizing, chari- 
table, and a man who on a question of simple justice needed only a 
hint of his duty to prompt him to go even beyond it. Any one who 
studies the Epistle will perceive that it ascribes to him these varied 
qualities ; it bestows on him a measure of commendation which forms 
a striking contrast with the ordinary reserve of the sacred writers. It 
was through such believers that the primitive Christianity evinced 
its divine origin, and spread so rapidly among the nations. 

The tone in which Paul asks forgiveness for Onesimus is worthy 
alike of such a man and of himself. He might have used his author- 
ity in Christ to enjoin what was right ; but he preferred to exhort 
Philemon from motives of love, " being such an one as Paul the 



846 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

elder, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ." He also had a claim 
upon Onesimus, his " son, begotten in his bonds," and now doubly 
" profitable " (as he does not disdain to say playfully) " to thee and to 
me." He would have kept him with himself, to minister in the Gos- 
pel, but he would not even seem to force Philemon to confer the favor 
except of his free-will ; and so he sends Onesimus back, having no 
doubt persuaded him to return as an act of Christian duty. But, 
while thus respecting the legal right of the master over the slave, he 
clearly intimates that the law of Christ would not be fulfilled by the 
simple return of Onesimus to slavery : — " Perhaps for this cause he 
departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever ; not 
now as a slave, but above a slave, a brother beloved, first of all to me, 
and how much more to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If 
thou count me therefore in fellowship with thee, receive him as myself." 
Thus completely identifying himself with Onesimus, the Apostle en- 
gages to make good any loss that he had caused to his master ; and, 
as if to make the promise legally binding, he writes this passage at 
least of the Epistle with his owm hand ; not, however, without gently 
reminding Philemon that he would still owe him his own soul over 
and above. Such is the Apostle's practical comment on his own text, 
" In Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, but Christ is all and in 
all ;" teaching which is the more interesting when viewed in its con- 
nection with the passages in the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephe- 
sians concerning the duties of masters and servants. 

Onesimus accompanied Tychicus, the bearer of the Apostle's letter 
to the Colossians, as well as of a very similar Epistle to the Church 
of Ephesus, through which city he would pass on his route. His 
mission to both churches is described in almost the same terms : to let 
them know the Apostle's condition while inquiring into their own, 
and to comfort their hearts. The Epistle to the Ephesians, however, 
does not seem to have been called forth by any special circumstances, 
nor even to have involved any distinctly precautionary teaching, 
whether against Oriental or Judaistic theosophy, but to have been 
suggested by the deep love which the Apostle felt for his converts at 
Ephesus, and which the mission of Tychicus, with an Epistle to the 
Church of Colossse, afforded him a convenient opportunity of evincing 
in written teaching and exhortation. The Epistle thus contains 
many thoughts that have pervaded the nearly contemporaneous Epis- 
tle to the Colossians, reiterates many of the same practical warnings 
and exhortations, and bears even the tinge of the same diction. The 
highest characteristic which these two Epistles have in common is 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 847 

that of a presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ, fuller and clearer 
than we find in previous writings, as the Head of creation and of 
mankind. All things created through Christ, all things coherent in 
him, all things reconciled to the Father by him, the eternal purpose 
to restore and complete all things in him — such are the ideas which 
grew richer and more distinct in the mind of the Apostle, as he medi- 
tated on the Gospel which he had been preaching, and the truths 
implied in it. 

These three Epistles were followed — but, as we have seen, at some 
considerable interval — by the Epistle to the Philippians, whose date 
nearly all critics concur in fixing toward the end of Paul's imprison- 
ment, in the latter part of A. D. 62, or the beginning of A. D. 63. 
The Epistle to the Philippians resembles the Second to the Corinth- 
ians in the effusion of personal feeling, but differs from it in the ab- 
sence of all soreness. It contains less of censure, and more of praise 
than any other of Paul's extant letters. The Christians at Philippi 
had regarded the Apostle with love and reverence from the beginning, 
and had given him many proofs of their affection. They had now 
sent him a contribution toward his maintenance at Rome, such as we 
must suppose him to have received from time to time for the expenses 
of " his own hired house." The bearer of this contribution was 
Epaphroditus, an ardent friend and fellow-laborer of St. Paul, who 
had fallen sick on the journey or at Rome. The Epistle was written 
to be conveyed by Epaphroditus on his return, and to express the joy 
with which St. Paul had received the kindness of the Philippians. 
He dwells therefore upon their fellowship in the work of spreading the 
Gospel, a work in which he was even now laboring, and scarcely with 
the less effect on account of his bonds. His imprisonment had made 
him known, and had given him fruitful opportunities of declaring his 
Gospel among the Imperial guard, and even in the household of 
the Caesar. He professes his undiminished sense of the glory of fol- 
lowing Christ, and his expectation of an approaching time in which 
the Lord Jesus should be revealed from heaven as a deliverer. There 
is a gracious tone running through this Epistle, expressive of hu- 
mility, devotion, kindness, delight in all things fair and good, to 
which the favorable circumstances under which it was written gave a 
natural occasion, and which helps us to understand the kind of ripen- 
ing which had taken place in the spirit of the writer. 

The allusions in this Epistle to the relief of Paul's necessities raise 
the question of how he was maintained during his imprisonment, and 
whether he was still able to labor with his own hands. Thus much 



848 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

we know, that, while sometimes pinched with want, he so husbanded 
what resources he had, as to be able (for he was not the man to make 
a vain promise) to repay Philemon whatever he might have lost by 
Onesimus, 

When this Epistle was written, Paul was expecting the crisis of 
his earthly fate, as nearer in prospect, but even less hopeful in its 
issue, than when he wrote the other three. Then, he was so con- 
fidently anticipating a favorable answer to the prayers for his release, 
that he asks Philemon to prepare him a lodging. Now, while still 
trusting in the efficacy of those prayers, he is above all anxious that 
they should be directed to his support in the coming trial, " That in 
nothing shall I be ashamed, but that with boldness, as always, so now 
also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life or by 
death" There is a striking resemblance, but also a striking contrast, 
between these utterances and his last in the Second Epistle to Timo- 
thy. The noble note of perfected resignation — " I am now ready to 
be offered " — is preluded by the comparison — " To me to live is 
Christ, and to die is gain." But still it is a comparison, an alterna- 
tive, in which the decision (if it were his to make) seems to him most 
difficult ; and his own earnest " desire to depart, and to be with 
Christ, which is far better," is overborne by the need that the Church 
still had of his service ; and so he comes to the confident conclusion, 
" I know that I shall abide and continue with you all, for your 
furtherance and joy of faith." Still, however, the conflict may be 
traced throughout the Epistle; and the passage in which he comes 
nearest to planning his future movements, if released, stands in close 
connection with the opposite alternative : — " Yea, and if I be offered 
on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you 
all. . . . But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly 
unto you .... Him, therefore, I hope to send presently, so soon as 
I shall see how it mill go with me. But I trust in the Lord that I also 
myself shall come shortly." 

It is not difficult to find reasons for all this in the altered state of 
affairs at Home. The second year of Paul's imprisonment marks the 
most unfavorable crisis in the court and character of Nero. The 
death of Burrus (Jan., A. D. 62) deprived the emperor of his most 
manly councillor, and the Apostle of that " captain of the guard " to 
whom he had been recommended by Julius, and by whom he had 
been leniently treated. The office was divided, and Fenius Hufus 
proved too weak to check his colleague Tigellinus, the worst of Nero's 
satellites. The influence of Seneca was declining, though we may 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 849 




STAIRS OF THE MODERN CAPITAL AT ROME. 



A. D. 63. 



doubt whether the philosopher would have had much sympathy with 
the Apostle. Worst of all, Nero cemented by a marriage his con- 
nection with Poppsea, for whose sake he divorced and murdered his 
young wife Octavia; and the birth of a son, at the beginning of A. D. 
63, gave her a paramount influence, which, as a Jewish proselyte, she 
would naturally use against the Apostle. Paul's very success in 
gaining converts in the imperial household would increase his danger; 
and he now complains of that disheartening abandonment by friends 
which is the very gall of adversity. 

But, while borne up inwardly by faith, prayer, and re- 
signation, he found a safeguard in the emperor himself. 
Among the sentiments and tastes, the unbridled indulgence of which 
proved the ruin of Nero's character, the sentiment of justice to his 
subjects survived. Paul probably knew this when he appealed to 
Caesar; nor was the appeal made in vain. In those cases which 
Nero reserved for his own hearing, he was conspicuous for the preci- 
sion which he demanded of the pleaders, and for the care with which 
he delivered his judgments in writing, after taking the opinion of 
competent advisers. There is the best reason to believe the pre- 
vailing tradition that, after an imprisonment of two years, Paul's 
case was heard by the emperor and decided in his favor. We have 
no positive contemporary record of the fact ; but there is one piece of 
direct historic evidence, from which it seems fairly to be inferred. 
54 



850 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The precision with which St. Luke specifies the duration of Paul's 
imprisonment justifies the inference that it came to an end at the close 
of the " two years," that is, in the spring of A. D. 63. 

Some modern writers have, indeed, maintained the paradoxical 
theory that Paul's imprisonment ended only with his martyrdom, 
which they place much earlier than the received date. Their reasons 
are purely negative. They set aside the statements of ecclesiastical 
tradition as worthless. The testimony of the Pastoral Epistles to 
St. Paul's freedoui, his use of it in fresli apostolic circuits in Asia 
and Europe, and his renewed imprisonment at Rome, with the pros- 
pect of death before him, is got rid of generally by a denial of the 
genuineness of these Epistles, or by referring them to a much earlier 
period of the Apostle's life ; but the latter view seems clearly untena- 
ble, so that the objection is resolved into the former. The whole 
argument will be examined presently. 

There remain the indications in the four Epistles written during 
his imprisonment at Rome, of Paul's assurance of his coming release 
and his plans in reference to it, besides the celebrated project, in the 
Epistle to the Romans, of a visit to Spain. But it is contended that 
St. Paul's expectations were not always realized, and that the passages 
from Philemon and Philippians are effectually neutralized by Acts 
xx. 25 — "I know that ye all (at Ephesus) shall see my face no 
more;" — inasmuch as the supporters of the ordinary view hold that 
St. Paul went again to Ephesus. This is a fair answer to the argu- 
ment from intention alone, leaving out of view the testimony of 
tradition and the authority of the Pastoral Epistles. But this is not 
all. The testimony of Luke places the objectors in this dilemma : 
if Paul had been martyred at the end of two years, Luke would 
certainly not have broken off without recording so important a fact: 
if his imprisonment had been prolonged beyond the two years, Luke 
could not have named this as its precise duration ; and so the conclu- 
sion seems irresistible, that he was then set free. 

Before we consider the light thrown upon the remainder 
a. d. 63. of the ^p 0st i e > s iif e b y tne Pastoral Epistles and by the 

ancient Christian writers, it is necessary to notice the relation of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews to his first imprisonment at Rome. This is 
not the place to discuss the authorship of that marvellous composition. 
It will be enough here to say that the striking resemblances between 
this Epistle and those to the Colossians and Ephesians, on the doc- 
trine of the Headship of Christ over the creation — not only as to the 
general principle, but in the details of its expression — have long since 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 851 

wrought in our mind the growing conviction that the great mass of 
the ancient Church was right in regarding the Epistle as Paul's, and 
not only that these works were the product of the same mind, but at 
the same stage of its development, and under the same circumstances. 
And what is more probable and consistent than that, in the leisure 
and retirement of his prison, amid the vain pomps and assumptions 
of Csesarism, and when his last attempt to convince the Jews had 
been frustrated, — that the Jew, who had been brought up at the feet 
of Gamaliel, who had made advances in his national faith above his 
equals, and who could now review his rabbinical lore in the light of 
Gospel truth, — that such a man, under such conditions, should work 
out, for the benefit of Jewish Christians, especially in Palestine, the 
great doctrine of Christ's pre-eminence above all creatures, in earth or 
heaven, as established by the covenant of God with his ancient people, 
and illustrated by all the symbols of their worship ? 

The other element, which runs through the whole Epistle, tends to 
the same conclusion. The writer, whoever he may be, is addressing a 
persecuted body of Christians, whose faith was sorely tried ; and each 
point of his great argument is intertwined with the most earnest ex- 
hortations to constancy, the most glowing examples of faith triumph- 
ing over suffering and death, the most solemn warning against 
apostasy, ever embodied in human language. And if we know of no 
writer of the apostolic age, but Paul, capable both intellectually and 
spiritually of writing the Epistle, so we know of no Church except 
that of Judaea at this very crisis, to which both the doctrinal and prac- 
tical parts of the Epistle would be pre-eminently adapted. Troubled 
within by the Judaistic conflict, they wanted a full and final demon- 
stration of the true relation of Judaism to Christianity. Drawn on, 
with the rest of their countrymen, nearer and nearer to the verge of 
that frightful national convulsion in which all that was external in 
Judaism was to perish, they needed to be consoled and fortified by the 
lesson that all that was vital had been first absorbed into Christianity, 
so that the rest " having decayed and grown old, was ready to vanish 
away." Exposed doubly, as Christians to the malice of the Jews, and 
as Jews to the hatred of the Greeks, under a government which, since 
the death of Festus, was hurrying on to anarchy, they required to be 
fortified against persecution and apostasy. 

Nay more, there seem to be distinct allusions to the recent martyr- 
dom of their own rulers, of which they themselves had been spectators, 
which enable us to specify, with great probability, the very persecution 
under which they suffered. Besides reminding them of " the great 



852 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

conflict of sufferings " which they had endured in " the former days, 
in which they were enlightened/' — the persecutions in the first age of 
Christianity, — and after recounting the " great cloud of martyrs" of 
ancient times — he comes to the recent examples of a faith parallel to 
theirs, and exhorts the brethren to " remember their own leaders, who 
had spoken to them the word of the Lord, and reviewing (as spectators) 
the end of their course, to imitate their faith." Now it was in the 
second year of Paul's imprisonment at Rome (a. d. 62), that the 
high-priest Ananus availed himself of the vacancy in the procurator- 
ship, between the death of Festus and the arrival of Albinus, to per- 
petrate the judicial murder of St. James the Just and other leaders of 
the Church of Jerusalem, according to the account of Josephus. How 
precisely does the language of the Epistle apply to the martyrdom of 
the Apostle who is usually regarded as the first bishop of Jerusalem, 
and who certainly had a special oversight of that Church ! This allu- 
sion, moreover, confirms the ancient opinion that " the Hebrews," to 
whom the Epistle was addressed (according to the title, for it begins 
without a superscription), were the Jewish Christians of Palestine, and 
of Jerusalem in particular. Its direct personal appeals and salutations 
prove that it had some such original destination ; while the super- 
scription may have been omitted to denote its wider destination for 
Jewish Christians everywhere. 

Besides these general indications, there are specific allusions, which 
not only confirm the authorship as St. Paul's, but throw light upon 
the Apostle's movements. Foremost of these is the request, so 
strikingly parallel to passages in the Epistle to the Philippians, for 
the prayers of the brethren, first that the writer might be able to keep 
a good conscience, and to maintain an honorable course — words pre- 
cisely suited to his trial before Nero — and next that, as the result of 
his being thus supported, he might be restored to them the sooner. 
Next comes the passage — " Know ye that our brother Timothy is set 
at liberty (or rather, has departed), with whom, if he come quickly, I 
will see you." Compare this with what Paul wrote to the Philip- 
pians — " I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto 
you ... so soon as I shall see how it will go with me. But I trust 
in the Lord that I also shall come shortly." Few can doubt that the 
two passages come from the same pen and refer to the same senes of 
intended movements, though, as intentions only are spoken of in the 
briefest terms, the details are somewhat obscure. Thus much seems 
clear, that the passage in Hebrews was written when, even if the trial 
was not concluded, its issue was so well foreseen the writer could ex- 



PAUL'S IMPRISONMENT AT ROME. 853 

change u I trust" for " I will see you;" and when Timothy had de- 
parted, probably on his mission to the Philippians, to carry to them 
the good news, as Paul had promised, and to bring back word of 
their state. Such a mission would supersede the immediate execution 
of Paul's design of visiting Philippi ; and he may have been urged to 
go straight to Jerusalem by the same motives that induced him to 
write the Epistle to the Hebrews. The news of the persecution of 
the Christians by Ananus would doubtless be brought to Rome by 
some of the fugitives; and Paul, desiring to strengthen his brethren 
by his personal presence, may have resolved to sail for Judaea, as soon 
as the navigation opened, in company with Timothy, if the latter re- 
turned soon enough from Philippi. Meanwhile he probably sent the 
Epistle to Jerusalem, to prepare the brethren for his coming. As to 
the place from which he wrote it, the words " They of Italy salute 
you " are decisive, if we accept, as we probably should, the rendering 
of our version. 

This reasoning would lead us, with more than probability, to the 
first step of the Apostle's course after his release from his imprison- 
ment. For the question is not (as in cases before noticed) of a mere 
intention ; but of a positive intention to be executed so immediately 
that he would not wait long for Timothy's return : — " With whom. 
if he come the quicker {<tdx^ov) I will see you" This seems almost de- 
cisive for the direction of Paul's course straight to Jerusalem, on his 
liberation in the spring of A. D. 63. 



854 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 




CHAPTER XLII. 

THE LAST DAYS OP ST. PAUL AND ST. PETER — AND THE COMPLETE ESTABLISH- 
MENT OF THE CHURCH, PROM THE RELEASE OP ST. PAUL TO THE DESTRUC- 
TION OF JERUSALEM. 

[A. D. 63-70.] 

It HE argument at the end of the last chapter led us to the con- 
clusion that, after his imprisonment at Rome had lasted for 
two years, Paul was heard by Nero and set at liberty. More- 
over, we inferred from the Epistle to the Hebrews that he was 
purposing to make use of his recovered freedom in order to 
pay a visit to his brethren in Judaea, who needed the strongest comfort 
and confirmation in the terrible trials which now beset both their 
Church and nation. For further light our only certain gui- 
dance is to be found in the Pastoral Epistles ; of which the 
first to Timothy and that to Titus are nearly contemporaneous, and 
the second to Timothy the latest. From them, without encroaching 
on the domain of conjecture, we draw the following conclusions : (1.) 
St. Paul, at some time after leaving Rome, must have visited Asia 
Minor and Greece ; for he says to Timothy, " I besought thee to abide 
still at Ephesus, when I was setting out for Macedonia." After being 
once at Ephesus, he was purposing to go there again, and he spent a 
considerable time at Ephesus. (2.) He paid a visit to Crete, and left 
Titus to organize churches there. He was intending to spend a winter 
at one of the places named Nicopolis. (3.) He travelled by Miletus, 
Troas (where he left a cloak or case and some books), and Corinth. 
(4.) He is a prisoner at Rome, " suffering unto bonds as an evil- 
doer," and expecting to be soon condemned to death. At this time 
he felt deserted and solitary, having only Luke, of .his old associates, 
to keep him company ; and he was very anxious that Timothy should 
come to him without delay from Ephesus, and bring Mark with him. 
The end of the period covered by these movements is that also of 
the Apostle's whole career, and the Epistles themselves furnish strong 
arguments for placing them near together and at a date as advanced 
as possible in the history of the Apostle and the Church. The pecu- 
liarities of style and diction by which these are distinguished from all 
his former Epistles, the affectionate anxieties of an old man and the 
glances frequently thrown back on earlier times and scenes, the dis- 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 855 

position to be hortatory rather than speculative, the references to a 
more complete and settled organization of the Church, the signs of a 
condition tending to moral corruption, and resembling that described 
in the apocalyptic letters to the Seven Churches, would incline us to 
adopt the latest date which has been suggested for the death of St. 
Paul, so as to interpose as much time as possible between the Pastoral 
Epistles and the former group. This view would allow for the possi- 
bility of a period between Philippians and Hebrews and I. Timothy, 
covered by no scriptural records or even allusions. 

As to further details, we are encountered by immense difficulties 
from the paucity of materials and the multitude of opinions. The 
simplest and most condensed scheme is that of Mr. Lewin, based en- 
tirely upon the Epistles, to the exclusion of ecclesiastical tradition, 
except for the time of the Apostle's martyrdom. He supposes that 
St. Paul, released from his imprisonment in the spring of A. D. 63, 
sailed, as he had promised, for Jerusalem. Here he would be in no 
small danger, especially from his old enemy, the ex-high-priest Ana- 
nias, whose influence (Josephus tells us) was now at its height. Be- 
sides, he would be eager to revisit the scenes of his special labors, and 
to execute his purpose of oonfirming those Asiatic churches which 
" had not seen his face in the flesh," but for which he had " had so 
great a conflict" in spirit, Colossse, Laodicea, and Hierapolis. When, 
therefore, we meet him next, leaving Ephesus, on his way to Mace- 
donia, it is reasonable to suppose that he made a circuit — like those 
of former days — by Antioch and Asia Minor, staying at Colossse, where 
he had asked Philemon to prepare him a lodging. 

That the Apostle would spend a considerable time at the city which 
had been so long the scene of his former labors is probable in itself; 
and the First Epistle to Timothy proves the magnitude of his work 
there. The Gentile Churches, left to themselves during the Apostle's 
five years' absence — and in particular that of Ephesus, which we 
may, perhaps, regard as a type of the rest — had begun to feel the 
want of a more perfect organization ; and we may venture to say that 
to complete that organization was a chief providential end of the 
Apostle's release. Beginning it himself, and carrying it out through 
the ministry of Timothy here, as of Titus in Crete, he had occasion to 
place on permanent record, in the Epistles written to direct their 
action, the great principles of ecclesiastical order. 

These Epistles also prove that heretical opinions, corrupt practices, 
and personal ambitions — the evils of which he forewarned the 
Ephesian Elders when he parted from them at Miletus — had grown 



856 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

to a head during his long absence, and needed to be firmly repressed. 
It seems, therefore, not unreasonable to suppose that Paul spent the 
whole winter of 63-64 at Ephesus, if indeed that time be not all too 
short for what he had to do. In fact he seems to have made the city 
his headquarters at this period, for, when he leaves it for Macedonia, 
he contemplates returning as soon as possible, and treats the commis- 
sion that he leaves with Timothy as an episode in his own government 
of the Ephesian Church. 

Early in A. D. 64 (according to Mr. Lewin's scheme) 
Paul leit Timothy at Ephesus as his representative — amcar- 
apostolic rather than a bishop — while he himself sailed with Titus to 
Crete, to correct abuses similar to those which had grown up at 
Ephesus. Leaving Titus there to complete this work, with the same 
authority with which Timothy was invested, he returned to Ephesus, 
to prepare for a visit to his other chief field of labor in Macedonia 
and Greece, according to his promise to the Philippians. Timothy, 
who would gladly have accompanied his spiritual father, as on former 
journeys, was prevailed upon to continue his work at Ephesus, for 
which Paul gave him a solemn charge. It is important to observe 
how emphatically St. Paul dwells on thi%idea of a charge throughout 
the Epistles to Timothy and Titus — a charge for them to keep them- 
selves, and to enforce on all the Church — bishops and deacons, men 
and women, rich and poor, faithful disciples and factious opponents. 
Nor is it less interesting to notice the new phase which this arrange- 
ment exhibits in the history of Christianity. The Churches, hitherto 
accustomed to look for guidance to their apostolic founders, are now 
entrusted to the delegated authority of comparatively young men, 
who, furnished by Paul with full instructions, are to train them for 
self-government in the coming age, when the Apostle shall have de- 
parted from the earth. 

The experiment is the more interesting from its being made in no 
quiet times of settled faith and union ; and, perhaps, the difficulties 
that surrounded it may have been a reason for the Apostle's with- 
drawal for a time, to watch from a distance the working of his 
exhortations in other hands. It is clear from the First Epistle to 
Timothy that at Ephesus, as formerly at Corinth, there was a factious 
opposition against himself; and, like Lycurgus or Solon, retiring 
from the republics where they left their laws to work the more freely, 
Paul might feel that his admonitions would be better felt in their own 
intrinsic force, when worked out by other hands. 

The work and difficulties that were thus handed over are vividly 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 857 

portrayed in the First Epistle to Timothy. He had to rule presby- 
ters, most of whom were older than himself, to assign to each a 
stipend in proportion to his work, to receive and decide on charges 
that might be brought against them, to regulate the alms-giving and 
the sisterhoods of the Church, to ordain presbyters and deacons. 
There was the risk of being entangled in the disputes, prejudices, 
covetousneas, sensuality, of a great city. There was the risk of 
injuring health and strength by an overstrained asceticism. Leaders 
of rival sects were there — Hymenseus, Philetus, Alexander — to oppose 
and thwart him. The name of his beloved teacher was no longer 
honored as it had been ; the strong affection of former days had 
vanished, and "Paul the aged" had become unpopular, the object of 
suspicion and dislike. Only in the narrowed circle of the faithful 
few — Aquila, Priscilla, Mark, and others, who were still with him — 
was he likely to find sympathy or support. We cannot wonder that 
the Apostle, knowing these trials, and, with his marvellous power 
of bearing another's burdens and making them his own, should be 
full of anxiety and fear for his disciples' steadfastness; that admoni- 
tions, appeals, warnings, should follow each other in rapid and vehe- 
ment succession. 

It is a deeply interesting question in the early history of Chris- 
tianity, what were the precise evils and errors in the Church of 
Ephesus which moved all this anxiety. The answer is furnished by 
those many allusions which show the sad spectacle of new forms of 
error infecting the Church. It is indeed most strange that this 
should have been turned into an argument against the genuineness 
of the Pastoral Epistles, when we trace the rapid spread of Oriental 
mysticism and asceticism on the one hand, and of the Alexandrian 
philosophy on the other — among Jews as well as Greeks — as seen in 
the Cabbala and in Philo, and when we have heard Paul already 
denouncing the like mixture of errors in his Epistle to the Colossians. 
It was expressly against new forms of error, about to rise among 
them after his departure, that the Apostle had warned the Ephesian 
Elders at Miletus ; nor will any one acquainted with the history of 
heresies be surprised that five years were sufficient for their develop- 
ment, much less when he sees how many were rife in these very 
Asiatic churches, when St. John wrote to them in the Apocalypse. 
The fatal though seemingly unnatural alliance had already been con- 
tracted between ritualism and rationalism, as we now say, or, in the 
language of that age, between Judaism and Gnosticism. " The East 
and West were infusing their several elements of poison into the 



858 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

pure cup of Gospel truth. In Asia Minor, as at Alexandria, Hel- 
lenic philosophism did not refuse to blend with Oriental theosophy ; 
the Jewish superstitions of the Cabbala, aud the wild speculations of 
the Persian Magi, were combined with Greek craving for an enlight- 
ened and esoteric religion. The outward forms of superstition were 
ready for the vulgar multitude; the interpretation was confined to the 
aristocracy of knowledge, the self-styled Gnostics. jy 

The simple and sad truth is, that as soon as Christianity was 
generally diffused, it began to absorb corruptions from all the coun- 
tries that it covered, and to reflect the complexion of all the religious 
and philosophic systems to which it was opposed. But, in the 
Apostolic age, the Judaizers are still the leaders of the hosts of error, 
and gather all the rest under their banner. And this can onlv seem 
an anomaly to those who confound Judaism with Pharisaism, for- 
getting the Sadducean element: or who overlook the latitudinarian 
opinions of the Hellenists. Side by side with the old Jewish spirit 
of self-righteousness, there had grown up a Jewish libertinism, which, 
satisfying the conscience by insisting on the outward forms of the 
Mosaic Law, embraced the wildest errors from every quarter of the 
heathen world. Both forms of Judaism soon infected the Christian 
Church, which — as Paul expressly tells us — was corrupted not only 
by the errors of sincere converts, but by false brethren who had 
crept in unawares. The open opponents, who had sacrificed Christ 
for fear of Caesar, were succeeded by feigned disciples, who found in 
Christian liberty an excuse for the dissolution of social and political 
bonds, and the hope of a millennium of sensuality and self-will. 

The chief seat of this heresy was in Asia Minor, where the Jewish 
synagogues had been brought into close contact with the remnants of 
Hellenic liberty and the practice of Oriental licentiousness. In the 
remoter provinces of the peninsula, where the Oriental element was 
strongest and the Jews of the Dispersion were the most numerous, the 
heresy assumed those grosser forms which are exposed in the Epistles 
of Peter and Jude, and which, as we learn from the Apocalypse, 
soon became rampart even in the refined province of Asia. But the 
evil had not as yet reached this height at Ephesus. Libertinism of 
opinion was kept in countenance by ritualistic zeal, and a pretended 
asceticism had as yet but partially given place to its natural successor, 
libertinism in practice. The false teachers of the Pastoral Epistles 
are predominantly Jewish, " claiming to be teachers of the law, not 
understanding either what they talk or what they are confident of," 
whose " vain janglings " (parao.oyia) consisted in those " foolish ques- 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 859 

tions, fables } endless genealogies, contentions and strivings about the law/ 9 
which formed the mass of Rabbinical learning. " The law is good" 
seems to have been the catch-word which they opposed to the doctrine 
of grace taught by Paul, who replies with as keen irony as profound 
truth, the law is good if used lawfully, — as a restraint on those crimes 
of which these teachers were ready to be at least tolerant, but which 
he sternly denounces as contrary to sound doctrine, " according to the 
glorious Gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my 
trust." 

The combination of Oriental theosophy and reverence for interme- 
diate spirits with asceticism, which Paul had already opposed in the 
Colossian Church, he now speaks of as working in germs which the 
Spirit expressly foretold by him were to receive a fearful development 
in " the latter times," as he elsewhere calls them, the " last days : " 
those perilous times of which John, Peter and Jude also write, with 
more special reference to their moral enormities. The use of the same 
word, added to the like features, marks this as the Great Apostasy of 
which Paul had long since written to the Thessalonians, where — lest 
any should suppose that we are confounding prophesies with facts — 
he expressly says, " The mystery of iniquity doth already work." 
The "last time" of conflict between truth and error had, in fact, 
begun. Whatever future development this mystery of Antichrist might 
hereafter assume in positive systems of superstition or infidelity, or 
both combined, its principles were already at work. Some had begun 
to depart from the faith, seduced by " erratic spirits" into the belief 
of " doctrines about inferior deities through the hypocrisy of false 
teachers who had first their own conscience hardened as by a cautery," 
and who, as at Colossae, mingled asceticism with their mysticism, 
"forbidding to marry, and enjoining abstinence from foods — things 
which God had ordained to be received with thanksgiving by those 
who believe and know the truth." In opposition to all such teaching, 
the Apostle lays down the great principle — " Every creature of God is 
good, and none to be rejected, when taken with thanksgiving : for it 
is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." All these errors are 
summed up — in opposition to that truth which Paul describes as a 
trust (or deposit) committed to Timothy — as " the profane babblings 
and oppositions of the falsely named knowledge," a word which not 
only suggests the fearful developments of these errors in the Gnosti- 
cism of the next century, but indicates that the name had already 
been assumed. In contrast with this summary of the mysteries of 
error, the Epistle gives us a noble epitome of the Christian faith, in- 



860 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

troduced by words which have been thought to indicate a passage 
from a hymn or creed : " And, as is confessed, great is the mystery of 
godliness [or religion] : God was manifested in the flesh ; justified by 
the spirit ; seen of angels ; preached among the Gentiles ; believed on 
in the world ; received up into glory ; " and he points to the Church 
as the pillar and foundation laid on earth for the support of this doc- 
trine. 

Another significant link between this and the next age of the 
Church, as to the growing sharpness of the conflict with error, is seen in 
the fact that the Apostle, who had written to the Corinthians so ten- 
derly, though firmly, of an arch-offender, now first brands opponents 
by name ; and, though his injunctions to deal firmly with the offence 
are not plainer than before, he speaks with more severity of the offen- 
ders, as men who, " having put away a good conscience, have made 
shipwreck concerning faith, of whom is Hymenceus and Alexander, whom 
I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." 
The Epistle to Titus enjoins the like firmness in dealing with here- 
tics, a word which here first occurs in its common ecclesiastical sense. 

When we pass to the Second Epistle to Timothy, we learn what 
was the precise heresy thus denounced, and now in terms of increased 
severity. For the " profane and vain babblings" had themselves " in- 
creased unto more ungodliness," and their word was beginning " to 
devour like a cancer : of whom are Hymeno3Us and Philetus, who con- 
cerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection has taken 
place already" The denial of a resurrection of the body was no new 
error in the Church ; but was the natural result ofSadducean corrup- 
tion. The famous argument of the Apostle seems to imply that in 
the Church of Corinth it did not go beyond the simple negation — 
" that there is no resurrection of the dead" But these pretenders to a 
higher spiritual philosophy than the Gospel held that it was already 
accomplished; no doubt in the sense soon after taught by the Gnostics, 
that the only Resurrection was the rising of the soul from the death 
of ignorance to the life and light of knowledge. 

Nor is the transition less marked to a more severe denunciation of 
moral corruption. The chief evil rebuked in the First Epistle is that 
love of riches which was a natural corruption in the wealthy province 
of Asia, and which gave occasion to Paul's magnificent homily on their 
true use. But now he draws a picture of sensual vice, and self- 
willed rebellion against the first laws of social order, precisely parallel 
to the description of Peter and Jude. And a comparison of the 
Epistle to Titus with the First to Timothy proves that this class of 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 861 

evils had made more rapid progress among the coarser Dorians of 
Crete, whose character the Apostle describes by a verse of their own 
pet poet Epimenides- — 

" Always liars are the Cretans, evil beasts and natures slow." 

In this Epistle, as in the First to Timothy, Paul sums up the prin- 
ciples opposed to these errors in a formula of truth ; which he finally 
condenses in the Second Epistle to Timothy, into a twofold motto, fit 
to be inscribed on the two faces of that base on which the Church was 
reared as the pillar of the truth 1 — the one looking toward heaven, and 
the other toward earth : " Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth 
sure, having this seal : 

" The Lord knoweth them that are his. And : 
"Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from 
iniquity." 

At what stage of PauPs journey westward these Epistles were dis- 
patched is altogether uncertain. Mr. Lewin thinks from Corinth, 
which the Apostle, travelling by way of the Isthmus, would visit on 
his way to Nicopolis, and where he would be likely to make a consi- 
derable stay. The direction of his journey is fixed by his determina- 
tion to winter at Nicopolis, at least if it is rightly assumed that he 
means Nicopolis in Epirus ; and the importance of his visit to this 
city may be inferred from his direction to Titus to join him there, with 
Zenas the lawyer and Apollos, in case he should send for him. 

The winter spent by Paul at Nicopolis closed a year 
marked by great events, which were destined to hasten 
both his own end and his country's (a. d. 64). Cestius Gallus became 
prefect of Syria, and Albinus was succeeded in the procuratorship of 
Judaea by Gessius Floras, who in less than two years provoked the 
Jewish war, the portents of which were clearer in the sufferings that 
grew intolerable on the land, than in the comet that blazed in the sky 
at the end of the year. Meanwhile a great part of Rome was laid in 
ruins by the fire that broke out on the anniversary of the burning of 
the city by the Gauls, and raged nine days. While Nero took posses- 
sion of a large part of the space thus cleared (as some said, by his own 
contrivance) for the erection of his immense palace, called the Golden 
House, he satiated the public indignation, to use the words of Tacitus, 
by "casting the charge of the crime and visiting it with exquisite tor- 
tures upon those whom, already hated for their wickedness, the people 



862 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



A. d. 65. 



called Christians. This name was derived from one Christus, who 
was executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator of Judaea, 
Pontius Pilate ; and this accursed superstition, for a moment repressed, 
broke forth again, not only through Judea, the source of the evil, but 
even through the city, whither all things outrageous and shameful 
flow together, and find many adherents. Accordingly, those were first 
arrested who confessed, afterward a vast number upon their informa- 
tion, who were convicted not so much on the charge of causing the 
fire as for their hatred to the human race. To their execution were 
added mockeries such as these : they were wrapped in the skins of 
wild beasts and torn in pieces by dogs, or crucified, or set on fire and 
burned, when day-light ended, as torches to light up the night. Nero 
lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a chariot race, at which 
he mingled freely with the multitude in the garb of a driver, or 
mounted on his chariot. As the result of all, a feeling of compassion 
arose for the sufferers, though guilty and deserving of condign punish- 
ment, on the ground that they were destroyed, not for the common 
good, but to gratify the cruelty of one man." 

Mournful as it is to hear the great historian venting upon 
the Christians the same prejudices that we have seen him 
uttering against the Jews, it may be that evils such as we have seen 
Paul rebuking at Ephesus had given a pretext for his charges against 
some who bore the Christian name. Nor should it be overlooked that 
his historical testimony to the death of Christ, at the time and manner 
related in the Gospels, is the more valuable for the very scorn that he 
shows toward the Christians. It was while these events were taking 
place at Rome that the Temple at Jerusalem was at length completed, 
more than eighty years after its commencement by Herod, and only 
five before its final destruction. The discharge of the workmen em- 
ployed upon the edifice added to the seething materials of the coming 
eruption. 

To what extent the cruelties against the Christians at Rome were 
followed up throughout the empire by what ecclesiastical historians 
call the First General Persecution, is a disputed point; but we have 
sufficient evidence that now the chief leaders of the Christians became 
obnoxious to the Roman government. The martyrdoms both of Paul 
and Peter, whatever their precise date, may certainly be referred to 
this new hostile movement ; and Clement of Rome, an authority almost 
contemporary, tells us that their fate was shared by "a great multi- 
tude of the elect, who, suffering many insults and torments through 
the envy of their adversaries, left the most glorious example among us." 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETE'R. 863 

It is supposed by some that St. Paul was now arrested at Nicopolis, 
and thence carried a prisoner to Rome ; but the allusions in the Second 
Epistle to Timothy seem, as we shall see presently, scarcely consistent 
with any hypothesis but that of a recent departure from Ephesus, 
under circumstances of sorrow that had arisen after the date of the 
Epistle to Titus. Besides, Paul's return to Ephesus is just what we 
should expect from the intentions expressed in the First Epistle to 
Timothy. If, then, he returned, was it at such a time as to fulfil his 
hope of " coming shortly," or the other alternative, " if I tarry long ?" 
and, in the latter case, what was the cause of the delay ? and was it 
connected with the motive that carried him to Nicopolis, a station 
where his face was once more turned toward the Western division of 
the Empire ? 

These questions are connected with that most obscure but deeply 
interesting problem in the Apostle's life, his alleged journey to the 
Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, and in particular to Spain. 
We have seen him informing the Church at Rome of such an inten- 
tion, as one of the motives that impelled him to visit the capital. 
Now, besides the general argument, previously referred to, that the 
mere statement of an intention cannot of itself be evidence of its ful- 
filment, we know, in this case, that the plan was not executed at the 
time and in the manner contemplated by the Apostle. That deliberate 
and steadfast character of his plans, on which he himself lays so much 
stress, suggests a presumption that he would ultimately execute this 
design if the opportunity ever came ; but, on the other hand, the same 
presumption may be the only basis for the ecclesiastical tradition, which 
at first sight appears to furnish independent evidence. There is an- 
other presumption, but purely negative, from the internal evidence of 
Scripture, compared with the date of the Apostle's martyrdom. If the 
latest date of A. D. 67-8 be accepted, we have an interval of four or 
five years from the end of his first imprisonment to his death, a period 
which the movements referred to in the Pastoral Epistles are insuffi- 
cient to fill up. It is inferred that this gap may be supplied by the 
journey to the West, either before or after the writing of the First 
Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus. The former alternative 
is usually preferred, in order to bring the Pastoral Epistles close to- 
gether; while the latter suggests a motive for the wintering at Nico- 
polis. Another indirect argument is found in the greater safety which 
the Western Provinces, then under the government of distinguished 
men who chafed under the tyranny of Nero (Galba and Vindex), 
would afford to the Apostle during the Neronian persecution, while he 
was prosecuting his cherished purpose of evangelizing those regions. 



864 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

It remains to see what positive evidence we have for the general 
belief of antiquity, that Paul visited the West. The first writer 
quoted in support of the journey to Spain is one whose evidence would 
indeed be irresistible, if the language in which it is expressed were 
less obscure. Clement of Rome, in a hortatory and rather rhetori- 
cal passage, refers to St. Paul as an example of patience, and mentions 
that he preached " both in the East and in the West," and that before 
his martyrdom he went " to the goal of the West/' which may de- 
scribe either Spain or some more distant country. Another testi- 
mony, which mentions less ambiguously a u profectionem Pauli ab 
urbe in Spaniam proficiscentis" is doubtful through the imperfection 
of the text. Chrysostom says that after Paul had been in Rome, he 
again departed to Spain ; and Jerome speaks of the Apostle as set free 
by Nero that he might preach the Gospel of Christ " in the parts of 
the West." It is worthy of notice that all these testimonies make the 
visit to Spain an immediate consequence of the Apostle's liberation. 
Ewald, who denies the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles, and 
therefore rejects the journeyings in Greece and Asia Minor, yields to 
the testimony of tradition in favor of the journey to Spain. 

Returning from this doubtful ground, we come to the evidence 
furnished by the Second Epistle to Timothy to the last stage of the 
Apostle's course. The main fact, that he was now a prisoner at 
Rome, with a certain and immediate prospect of his martyrdom, 
admits of no doubt to those who receive the Epistle as genuine; nor 
are indications wanting of the steps that had led him to this his last 
imprisonment. The allusions to various details, personal as well as 
public, bear all the impress of what is recent. One of these seems to 
prove that Titus had joined him at Nicopolis, as Paul had wished, 
and had been sent into the neighboring region of Dalmatia; and w r e 
gather from others that the Apostle had recently been at Corinth, at 
Troas, at Miletus, and at Ephesns, where he had been subjected to 
the bitter trial of a general desertion on the part of the Asiatic Chris- 
tians, under two leaders, whose names now first appear — Phygellus 
and Hermogenes — but w 7 here he had been ministered to by Onesi- 
phorus, the same devoted disciple who, regardless of disgrace and 
danger, had diligently sought him out at Rome. Lastly, those tears 
of Timothy, the tender recollection of which the Apostle carried into 
his person, not only point — as all agree — to a recent separation, but 
to such a scene as must have taken place if Timothy saw his father 
in the faith dragged away from Ephesus as a prisoner ; such a scene 
as had formerly been witnessed at Paul's parting from the Elders of 




55 



S6o 



866 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Ephesus, and again at Csesarea, when he seemed to be advancing to a 
martyr's death at Jerusalem. 

These indications tend to confirm the theory that St. Paul was ar- 
rested at Ephesus during the Neronian persecution ; a cause to which 
we may refer the desertion of the Asiatics. Indeed the later treat- 
ment of the Apostle by this church is in striking agreement with the 
remonstrance of St. John, " Because thou hast left thy first love. 7 ' 
There remains one indication, which has been generally overlooked, 
of the very circumstances that led to St. Paul's arrest. The sentence 
— " Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil : the Lord reward 
him according to his works ! " — has suggested painful feelings to 
many a reader, which assuredly would not be soothed by the belief 
that it is the utterance of resentment for the part taken by Alexander 
in the riot at Ephesus some ten years before ! But the passage ap- 
pears in a very different light in the version of Dr. Howson : " Alex- 
ander the brass-founder charged me with much evil in his declaration ; 
the Lord shall reward him according to his works ! " Whether we 
suppose the Alexander whom the Jews put forward to make his de- 
fence to the Ephesians at the great riot to have been a Jew or a 
Christian, we are not surprised to meet him again as a Judaizing 
teacher in the Church ; nor that, in revenge for his excommunication, 
he should have laid an information against Paul during the great 
Neronian persecution ; for in all such proceedings informers were 
numerous and busy. That Alexander was now at Ephesus seems 
clear from the charge to Timothy, " Of whom be thou ware also." It 
is of little consequence to inquire whether the allusions to the Apos- 
tle's touching at Troas, where he left with Carpus the books and 
parchments, with the travelling-case, which he desires Timothy to 
bring with him ; at Miletus, where he left Trophimus sick ; and at 
Corinth, where Erastus stayed behind ; whether these refer severally 
to the journey by which he reached Ephesus, or to his voyage thence 
to Rome as a prisoner. It seems natural that this voyage should 
have been by way of Corinth and across the Isthmus, as the shortest 
route, and its commencement might have been either from Ephesus 
itself, or from Miletus, or from Troas, as the ship happened to be 
sailing. 

If we are right in referring these allusions to recent events, it will 
follow that no long interval elapsed from Paul's arrival at Rome to 
his writing the Epistle. We have one mark of its date in the fact 
that there was time left, after its transmission to Ephesus, for Timothy 
to make the journey thence and reach Rome before winter, by using 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 807 

diligence. Meanwhile, accused no longer merely about questions of 
the law, but as a common malefactor (for so the Christians were re- 
garded in the Neronian Persecution) — with no Julius to recommend 
and no Burrus to protect him — Paul's state may be inferred from the 
words, feebly rendered in our version, " wherein I suffer trouble, as an 
evil-doer (or felon), even unto bonds" — bonds more like those at Phi- 
lippi than his former chain af Rome. But even now, as well as then, 
he could add, " but the word of God is not bound ;" and the converts, 
whose names appear for the first time in this Epistle — Eubulus, Pu- 
dens, Linus, and Claudia — derive a special lustre from their profession 
being made amid such dangers, and from its contrast to the falling 
away of older friends. The Apostle seems gratefully to acknowledge 
that his apparently certain fate had been postponed by God's special 
providence, expressly to give him new opportunities of proclaiming 
the Gospel. 

In so simple a case as Paul's must now have seemed, there would 
be no reason to delay his trial, which might seem indeed a mere form, 
when Rome rang with the cry Christianos ad leones. But still the 
forms of Roman justice gave the innocent some shelter. We may 
assume that Paul established his right as a Roman citizen to be heard 
in his own defence ; and, as this is called his first, it w r ould seem that 
his case was regulated by Nero's rule, of giving a separate hearing to 
each count in the indictment. In spite of the virulence of his accu- 
sers, probably including Alexander — perhaps even because they over- 
reached themselves — either this count broke down or the hearing was 
adjourned. The Apostle's own account of the trial is poured out 
from the fulness of his heart, in terms less calculated to gratify the 
curious than to impress the devout. " At my first answer no man 
stood with me, but all forsook me — may it not be reckoned to them ! 
But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me, that through me the 
preaching might be accomplished and all the Gentiles might hear : 
and I was delivered from the mouth of the lion." Is this merely a pro- 
verbial expression ? Or does it refer to the lions of the amphitheatre ? 
or to the mighty monster, who now well deserved to be described by 
the same figure which Peter applies to the arch-enemy, and which is 
often used in Scripture for fierce and malignant foes. The sense of 
fitness might well make us content with the last interpretation ; but 
that there hangs upon it the other question, whether Paul was heard 
by Nero in person. If the affirmative be chosen, this first trial must 
have taken place before Nero's departure for Greece in the spring of 
A. D. 66, which seems the earliest date that can be assigned to it. 



868 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Then comes the question, what interval is to be allowed between this 
first trial and the Apostle's martyrdom ? For this we have no decis- 
ive data. While the tone of the Epistle denotes Paul's certain expec- 
tation of the issue, his urgency for Timothy to come before winter 
implies the probability of considerable delay. It must be left unde- 
cided whether Nero passed sentence on the Apostle before departing 
for Greece, or whether Paul received the martyr's crown while that 
of Olympia was bestowed by flattery on the prince : and whether he 
was executed with or without another trial. 

The interval, whether longer or shorter, exhibits the Apostle to us 
in one of the most interesting aspects of his life, as "a pattern to 
them which should hereafter believe on Christ to life everlasting." 
Deeply feeling, as we have seen, the pain and indignity of his bonds, 
he was still more deeply tried by a sense of loneliness. Crescens and 
Titus had been sent on missions to Galatia and Dalmatia ; Tychicus 
was the bearer of the Epistle to Timothy ; and, when there remained 
with him only Luke and Demas, the latter forsook him, " having 
loved the present world," and departed for Thessalonica. But there 
was another who had repented of his former desertion ; and Paul 
now desires the ministry of Mark, while he looks to Timothy above 
all for his remaining comfort upon earth. 

There seems to be a deeper meaning than has usually been observed 
in these repeated and urgent invitations to Timothy. If any one 
should be tempted to discover an element of selfishness in the willing- 
ness of Paul to expose so attached a friend to the dangers of Rome, 
we will not say merely that the peril was probably equally great at 
Ephesus — especially from the machinations of Alexander — but that 
Paul seems to invite Timothy to Rome expressly to confront its 
dangers. " His own son in the faith " had not only to render the 
last ministrations to a father, and to receive that father's last counsels; 
but to see him u finish his course with joy," that he might "arm him- 
self with the like mind." There comes to all a time when the chief 
work of life is to prepare for death ; and it seems most probable that 
Timothy would not long survive the blow aimed at Paul, or at least 
that he would be in constant danger of martyrdom from a popular 
tumult or a new outbreak of persecution. An attentive reader will 
observe how closely the admonitions to make full proof of his minis- 
try are connected with exhortations to endure hardness as a good 
soldier of Jesus Christ ; and how the glorious principles which sus- 
tained the Apostle in the prospect of martyrdom are stated for the 
very purpose of fortifying the disciple. " Be not thou ashamed of 






LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 869 

the testimony (to /*ap*vpMw) of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner ; but 
be thou partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel, according to the 
power of God." " If we be dead with him, we shall also live with 
him : if we suffer, we shall also reign with him : if we deny him, he 
also will deny us." Such are the last counsels of the spiritual Father 
to the son whom he desired to be his follower in all things, even 
to the martyr's death, that so he might share with him the martyr's 
crown. 

And how these principles sustained the Apostle's own mind, and 
put the climax to the moral grandeur and spiritual glory of his 
career, can be told in no words except his own. The contrast is 
indeed striking between the Epistles written during his former 
imprisonment and this last letter to Timothy. Then, even while 
brought face to face with death, and desiring it as gain, he looks back 
to the world, in which he had yet much to do for Christ ; and he 
feels too that his own spiritual life is not yet perfect :— " Brethren, I 
count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, for- 
getting those things which are behind, and reaching forward unto 
those things that are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." But now his work is 
done; the last tie of service that bound him to the world is severed; 
the goal to which he had pressed forward is within his reach : — " 7" 
am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 
I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have 
kept the faith. For the rest, there is laid up for me the crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at 
that day : and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his 
appearing" The last words put the finishing stroke to the Apostle's 
course: he ends, as he began, "a pattern for them that should here- 
after believe on Christ." We may well be content, though our 
curiosity about the precise time and manner of his departure remain 
unsatisfied, when we have this last view of him in his own writings : 
— "The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will pre- 
serve me unto his heavenly kingdom : to whom be glory for ever and 
ever. Amen." 

We have the concurrent testimony of ecclesiastical anti- 
quity, that St. Paul was beheaded at Rome during the 
Neronian persecution. The earliest allusion to his death is in the 
same passage of Clemens Romanus which has been quoted as the 
authority for his journey to the West: — "Having gone to the boun- 
dary of the West, and borne witness before the governors, he was 



870 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

thus released from the world." The next authorities are those quoted 
in the " Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius, the contemporary of Con- 
stantine the Great; — Dionysius, bishop of Corinth (a. d. 180), says 
that Peter and Paul went to Italy, and taught there together, and 
suffered martyrdom about the same time : — Caius, a learned presbyter 
of Rome, supposed to be writing within the 2d century, names the 
grave of St. Peter on the Vatican, and that of St. Paul on the road to 
Ostia. Eusebius himself entirely adopts the tradition that St. Paul 
was beheaded under Nero at Rome. The next testimony in import- 
ance is that of Tertullian (early in the 3d century), who says that at 
Rome " Peter was conformed to the passion of the Lord ; Paul was 
crowned with the death of John the Baptist." The Martyrdom of 
the Apostles Peter and Paul, under Nero at Rome, is mentioned in 
the "Chronicle" of Eusebius, which is the earliest authority for the 
date. The twofold event is placed under the year 2083 from the 
birth of Abraham, Olymp. 2114, and the 13th year of Nero, data 
which, though not free from difficulties of interpretation, point to 
A. D. 67. Jerome (about A. d. 480) places the event in the 14th of 
Nero; but he probably means the 13th, being misled by an error in 
the " Chronicle," which he translated : he also specifies the mode and 
place of St. Paul's death and burial. The anonymous author of the 
" Martyrdom of St. Paul " states that he was beheaded under Nero, 
on June 29th, in the 36th year from the Passion of the Saviour, 330 
years before the time at which he himself wrote, which was in the 
4th consulship of Honorius and the 3d consulship of Arcadius, 
A. D. 396, which would bring us to A. D. 66 ; and this agrees with 
Epiphanius, who places it in the 12th of Nero. The choice seems to 
lie between 66 and 67 : Mr. Lewin adopts the former. The mode 
of St. Paul's death, by simple beheading (without scourging), which 
was the military form of execution at this time, was doubtless the 
last privilege of his citizenship. Like his Master, he suffered " with- 
out the gate," on the busy road leading to the port of Ostia; probably 
under the shadow of the sepulchral pyramid of Caius Cestius, which 
now overhangs the Protestant cemetery. 

We have no very trustworthy sources of information as to the 
personal appearance of St. Paul. Those which we have are re- 
ferred to and quoted in Conybeare and Howson. They are the 
early pictures and mosaics described by Mrs. Jameson, and passages 
from Malalas, Nicephorus, and the apocryphal Acta Pauli et Theclce. 
They all agree in ascribing to the Apostle a short stature, a long face 
with high forehead, aquiline nose, close and j)rominent eyebrows. 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 871 

Other characteristics mentioned are baldness, grey eyes, a clear com- 
plexion, and a winning expression. Of his temperament and charac- 
ter St. Paul is himself the best painter. His speeches and letters 
convey to us, as we read them, the truest impressions of those qualities 
which helped to make him the The Great Apostle. We perceive the 
warmth and ardor of his nature, his deeply affectionate disposition, 
the tenderness of his sense of honor, the courtesy and personal dig- 
nity of his bearing, his perfect fearlessness, his heroic endurance ; we 
perceive the rare combination of subtlety, tenacity, and versatility in 
his intellect ; we perceive also a practical wisdom which we should 
have associated with a cooler temperament, and a tolerance which is 
seldom united with such impetuous convictions. And the principle 
which harmonized all these endowments and directed them to a prac- 
tical end was, beyond dispute, a knowledge of Jesus Christ in the 
Divine Spirit. Personal allegiance to Christ as to a living Master, 
with a growing insight into the relation of Christ to each man and to 
the world, carried the Apostle forward on a straight course through 
every vicissitude of personal fortunes and amid the various habits of 
thought which he had to encounter. The conviction that he had been 
entrusted with a Gospel concerning a Lord and Deliverer of men was 
what sustained him and purified his love for his own people, while 
it created in him such a love for mankind that he only knew himself 
as a servant of others for Christ's sake. 

It would also be beyond the scope of this book to attempt to ex- 
hibit the traces of St. Paul's Apostolic work in the history of the 
Church. But there is one indication, so exceptional as to deserve 
special mention, which shows that the difficulty of understanding the 
Gospel of St. Paul, and of reconciling it with a true Judaism, was 
very early felt. This is in the apocryphal work called the " Clemen- 
tines" (fd, KktjfiepTia), supposed to be written before the end of the 2d 
century. These curious compositions contain direct assaults (for 
though the name is not given, the references are plain and undis- 
guised) upon the authority and the character of St. Paul. St. Peter 
is represented as the true Apostle of the Gentiles as well as of the 
Jews, and St. Paul is o «><?p6j avQpurtos, who opposes St. Peter and St. 
James. The portions of the " Clementines " which illustrate the 
writer's view of St. Paul will be found in Stanley's " Corinthians ; " 
and an account of the whole work, with references to the treatises of 
Schliemann and Baur, in Gieseler. 

In direct contradiction to these malicious figments, the latest evi- 
dence of Scripture and the testimony of the early Church exhibit the 



372 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



two chief Apostles as true fellow-laborers in the work for their com- 
mon Lord, and " in their death not divided." Their harmonious 
working had been thoroughly established by the celebrated agreement 
made at Jerusalem, that the one should go to the Jews and the other 
to the Gentiles ; nor was it interrupted even by that painful collision 
at Antioch, when Peter submitted to Paul's reproof for his weak com- 
pliance with the Judaizers. From that time to his death, all that we 
learn of St. Peter in the New Testament is the little that can be in- 
ferred from his own Epistles. Indeed the consecutive history of his 
part in the foundation of Christianity ceases with his miraculous 
deliverance from the prison where he lay condemned to death by 
Herod Agrippa. 

The special work assigned to him by the symbol of the keys was 
now completed. • He had founded the Church, opened the gates to 
Jews and Gentiles, and distinctly laid down the conditions of admis- 
sion. Almost direct from his prison door he left Jerusalem, but we 
are not told whither he went : certainly not to Pome, where there are 
no traces of his presence before the last years of his life. He proba- 
bly remained in Judaea, visiting and confirming the Churches : some 
old but not trustworthy traditions represent him as preaching in 
Csesarea and other cities on the western coast of Palestine. He 
makes one more appearance in the Acts at the " Council of Jerusa- 
lem, " where he took the lead in the discussion, urging the great 
principle, established by the case of Cornelius, that purifying faith 
and saving grace remove all distinction between believers. His argu- 
ments, adopted and enforced by James, decided that question at once 
and forever. But he exercised, on this occasion, none of the powers 
which Romanists hold to be inalienably attached to the chair of St. 
Peter. He did not preside at the meeting, he neither summoned nor 
dismissed it ; he neither collected the suffrages nor pronounced the 
decision. He retained that personal but unofficial priority which had 
been assigned to him by Christ; but the government of the Church 
of Jerusalem was in the hands of James. 

The silence of the Scripture narrative concerning Peter, from this 
point onward, is a direct consequence of the plan of the Acts of the 
Apostles. As each step in the spread of the Gospel is completed, the 
agent — Peter, John, or Philip — recedes from view, just as Paul him- 
self does after his last testimony to the Jews at Rome. The two 
great movements by which Christianity was launched among the 
Jews and the Gentiles being fairly started, the detailed progress of 
the work is not pursued, and hence it follows that the acts of the 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 8T3 

other Apostles find no place in the history. Peter was probably 
employed, for the most part, in building up and completing the 
organization of the Churches in Palestine and the adjoining districts. 
Beyond these limits, his name is associated by ecclesiastical tradition 
with the Churches of Corinth, Antioch, and Rome, but with no 
others. The evidence of his having been at Corinth between St. 
Paul's first labors there and the writing of the First Epistle to the 
Corinthians is very strong ; but the reference to parties who claimed 
Peter, Apollos, Paul, and even Christ, as their chiefs, involves no 
opposition between the Apostles themselves, such as the fabulous 
Clementines and modern infidelity assume. 

Next comes the evidence furnished by the First Epistle 
of Peter, which is addressed " to the elect sojourners of 
the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," 
that is, the whole of Asia Minor, except some of the central parts, 
and the sea-board south of the Taurus. Whether Peter himself 
actually visited these countries is very doubtful, from the absence of 
any personal reminiscences and salutations in the Epistle. But there 
is one word which fixes the place from which the Epistle was written, 
if at least we take that word in its literal significance : — " The Church 
that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you." If we 
suppose that Peter was visiting his Jewish brethren of the Eastern 
Dispersion, there is no place which he would be more likely to make 
the goal and headquarters of such a tour. Babylon was at that time, 
and for some hundreds of years afterward, a chief seat of Jewish 
culture. Under the tolerant rule of the Parthians, the Jewish fami- 
lies there formed a separate and wealthy community ; and thence they 
had spread to many of the districts of Asia Minor to which the 
Epistle was addressed. Their intercourse with Judaea was uninter- 
rupted ; and their language, probably a mixture of Hebrew and 
Nabatean, must have borne a near affinity to the Galilean dialect. 
Christianity certainly made considerable progress at an early time in 
that and the adjoining districts ; and the prevailing Petrine tone of 
the great Christian schools at Edessa and Nisibis is supposed by some 
to indicate the Apostle as their founder. 

But a more important indication than that of place is found in the 
names of the persons who were with Peter when he wrote this Epis- 
tle, Sllvanus and Mark. The close connection of both with Paul 
furnishes evidence of intercourse between the two Apostles, though 
severed by the distance between the capitals of the Eastern and 
Western world. Of Silvanus we have lost sight, since we saw him 



8H HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

as the companion of St. Paul's second missionary journey ; and there 
is nothing to show how he came to be in Peter's company. The case 
of Mark is clearer ; for he was with Paul in his first imprisonment 
at Pome, and he was then contemplating a journey to Asia Minor. 
This intention was no doubt fulfilled, since we find him afterward 
with Timothy at Ephesus. The interval is just the time at which all 
indications concur to place Peter's First Epistle, and consequently 
Mark's companionship with him; and the inference is highly proba- 
ble, that Mark was the bearer of communications from Paul to Peter. 
The hypothesis that Silvanus also had been sent by Paul from Pome 
to visit the Asiatic churches, of which he had been the joint founder, 
and so had gone on to join Peter at Babylon, seems inconsistent with 
the absence of his name from the Acts and the Pauline Epistles sub- 
sequent to the second circuit. Others think that he visited the 
Asiatic churches in his character as one of the leaders of the Church 
of Jerusalem, and then joined Peter at Babylon. 

Be this as it may, the fact is deeply significant, that, when Peter 
wrote this Epistle to the Hebrew Christians of the Eastern Dispersion, 
two of Paul's companions were his intimate associates, and one of 
them the bearer of the Epistle which its writer intended as a mani- 
festo of the true doctrine of the grace of God. " By Silvanus, a 
faithful brother unto you, as I account him, I have written briefly, 
exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ve 
stand." This distinctly Pauline phrase sums up what has been 
called the Pauline element running throughout the whole Epistle; 
and, though the epithet jars upon the ear — as if it could be supposed 
that the Apostles taught different versions of the one Gospel — the 
Epistle may well be designated as Peter's testimony to the truth of the 
Gospel taught by Paul. 

This object, which Peter distinctly affirms in the Second Epistle, 
may be traced as clearly in the First as if Paul had been named in 
both; and it is a glorious exhibition of the unity of Christian doctrine 
that, while the Apostle of the Gentiles is doing battle with the 
Judaizers, the Apostle of the Jews cuts them off from their favorite 
appeal from Paul to his superior authority. This character is plainly 
seen both in the general teaching of the Epistle and in particular 
points of style and phraseology. Sometimes, indeed, we might fancy 
the positions of the two Apostles interchanged. The Apostle of the 
circumcision says not a word of the perpetual obligation, the dignity, 
or even the bearings, of the Mosaic Law. There are, in fact, more 
traces of what may, in one sense, be called Judaizing views, more of 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 875 

sympathy with national hopes, not to say prejudices, in the Epistles 
to the Romans and Galatians, than in this of Peter. This is a point 
of great importance, as showing how utterly opposed was the teach- 
ing of the original Apostles, whom St. Peter certainly represents, to 
that Judaistic narrowness which speculative rationalism has imputed 
to all the early followers of Christ, with the exception of St. Paul. 

The resemblances of style and expression present a curious problem, 
to which Peter himself has given us the key. " Even as our beloved 
brother Paul, according to the wisdom given unto him hath written 
unto you; as also in all his Epistles, speaking in them of these things; 
in which are some things hard to be xmderstood, which they that are 
unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other Scriptures, unto their 
own destruction." This celebrated passage, the very key-stone of 
apostolic evidence to the divine authority of all St. Paul's Epistles, 
and by inference of the other Scriptures of the New Testament as well 
as of the Old — gives at the same time the clearest exhibition of an 
Apostle applying his ordinary human intelligence to the study of 
those Scriptures. The " unlettered layman " of Galilee, enlightened 
by the Holy Spirit, admired deeply the wisdom granted to Paul, 
while, by the spiritual discernment given to himself, he grappled 
with the difficulties of his arguments. But we may be sure that this 
was not accomplished, even by Peter, without that careful reading, 
"whereby," Paul himself had written, "ye may understand my 
knowledge in the mystery of Christ." What a suggestive picture : 
Peter perusing PauVs Epistles ! Such an attentive study, perused 
with an anxiety to clear up the doubts at which the unlearned and 
unstable might stumble, could not but leave its mark on Peter's style. 

Nor can we think that he would despise the aid of Paul's com- 
panion, the Hellenist Silvanus, whose name was joined with Paul's 
in the superscription of some of these very Epistles, and in the decla- 
ration of the Gospel taught by the Apostle. The mere words " by 
Silvanus I have written to you," refer, according to usage, to the 
bearer rather than the writer or amanuensis of the Epistle ; but they 
may include the latter meaning. At all events, it is highly probable 
that Silvanus, considering his rank, character, and special connection 
with those churches, and with their great Apostle and founder, would 
be consulted by St. Peter throughout, and that they would read to- 
gether the Epistles of St. Paul, especially those to the Asiatic churches. 
Thus a Pauline coloring may have been introduced into the Epistle 
partly unconsciously, but in some passages amounting to a studied 
imitation of St. Paul's representations of Christian truth. The early 



ST6 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

writers inform us that Peter employed interpreters ; nor is there any- 
thing inconsistent with his position and character in the supposition 
that Silvanus, perhaps also Mark, may have assisted him in giving 
expression to the thoughts suggested to him by the Holy Spirit. We 
have thus, at any rate, a not unsatisfactory solution of the difficulty 
arising from correspondences, both of style and modes of thought, in 
the writings of two Apostles who differed so widely in gifts and 
acquirements. For the rest, the objects of the Epistle are, to comfort 
and strengthen the Christians in a season of severe trial ; to enforce 
the practical and spiritual duties involved in their calling; and to 
warn them against the special temptations attached to their position. 

The whole tone of St. Peter's First Epistle is that of a man ad- 
vanced in life and approaching the end of his career. Thus far, then, 
we have no evidence in the New Testament to connect the Apostle in 
any way with Rome ; but we have, on the other hand, strong negative 
evidence in the absence of any allusion to St. Peter in the Epistle to 
the Romans. Whence, then, arose that tradition of St. Peter's epis- 
copate at Rome, on which the Papacy — parodying our Lord's great 
prophecy of the Rock — has founded the claims that long transformed 
European Christianity into a system of worldly power and ambition ? 
The only positive evidence worth notice is a statement of Eusebius, 
so obviously erroneous as to be void of all authority. He makes St. 
Peter visit Rome in A. d. 42, and remain there twenty years. Xow 
it can be shown that the date rests on a miscalculation ; and the dura- 
tion of the visit is altogether inconsistent with the notices in the Acts 
of Peter's presence at Jerusalem and Antioch. 

We might almost say that the sole color of probability 
' ' has been given to the Romish assumption by the uneasy 
anxiety of some Protestants to reject the one fact that is 
supported by a mass of evidence, the martyrdom of St. Peter at Rome 
about the same time as St. Paul. That Peter was appointed, by a 
hio-her will than that of Xero, to suffer death by crucifixion, is the 
unquestioned meaning of our Lord's celebrated prophecy. Clement 
of Rome attests his martyrdom in a general connection with that of 
Paul. A more detailed testimony, of very high antiquity, is that of 
Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth (a. d. 180), that " Xero, the first who 
signally proclaimed himself an antagonist to God, was excited to the 
slaughter of the Apostles. They relate, then, that Paul was beheaded 
at Rome itself, and that Peter was likewise crucified." Eusebius him- 
self says elsewhere that " Peter was crucified at Rome, head down- 
ward, and Paul was beheaded." The presbyter Caius (about A. D. 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 877 

200) speaks of St. Peter's tomb on the Vatican; and we might 
add the testimonies of Origen, Tertullian, and, in a word, the uni- 
versal consent of the early Fathers. As to the date, the oldest 
authorities merely say that the two Apostles suffered about the 
same time, and under Nero. The chronologists, as we have seen, fix 
their martyrdom to the same year, varying between the 12th, 13th, 
and 14th of Nero, that is between October 13, A. d. 65, and June 9, 
A. D. 68. Jerome places both on the same day, which tradition makes 
the 29th of June. We can easily understand the desire to associate 
the two great Apostles as closely as possible in prison and in death ; 
but such a connection seems to be excluded by the negative evidence 
of the Second Epistle to Timothy ; though, otherwise, we might gladly 
trace it in Peter's last allusion to " our beloved brother Paul." 

There remains one point of considerable importance. Though, as 
we have seen, it is impossible to believe that Peter could have been 
at Rome till the last year or two of his life, the best authorities repre- 
sent his martyrdom as preceded by a#period of labor in Italy. Thus 
Ignatius, one of the Apostolic Fathers, in his undoubtedly genuine 
Epistle to the Romans, speaks of St. Peter in terms which imply a 
special connection with their Church. Dionysius of Corinth, in the 
passage quoted above, is accounting for the intimate relations between 
the Churches of Corinth and Rome by the fact, which everybody 
knew, that Peter and Paul both taught in Italy. Irenseus, the disci- 
ple of Polycarp, who was a hearer of St. John, bears distinct witness 
to St. Peter's presence at Rome ; and from the eminent position that 
he held in the West, as bishop of Lyon, as well as his constant inter- 
course with the East, he can hardly have been misinformed. In 
short, the churches most nearly connected with that of Rome, and 
those least affected by its influence, which was as yet but inconsidera- 
ble in the East, concur in the statement that Peter was a joint 
founder of that Church and suffered death in that city. 

But just in proportion to their belief in this fact, is the weight of 
their implicit denial of the assumption that Peter was the sole founder 
or resident head of that Church, or that the see of Rome derived from 
him any claim to supremacy. At the utmost, they place him on a 
footing of equality with St. Paul. The figment of Peter's supremacy 
over the other Apostles, as the Rock on which the Church is built, 
resolves itself into the metaphor from his name which Romanists are 
never weary of misquoting ; but we need go no further than Peter's 
own beautiful development of the figure — which he amplifies as if 
conscious that his distinctive name bound him to bear testimony to 



878 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the Chief Corner Stone — for a confirmation of the great truth pro- 
claimed by Paul : — " Other foundation can no man lay than that is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ." 

The " wise master-builders," who placed the first " living stones " 
upon that " Rock of Ages " — like the massive substructions laid by 
Solomon upon the Rock of Zion — are now vanishing from the scene 
of their labors, at the very time when the newly-finished Temple — 
the type of that spiritual edifice — awaits its destruction from the Ro- 
man armies. The greater number of the Apostles have early disap- 
peared to the uncertain scenes of their evangelic labors. Of those 
who fill a prominent place in the Scripture history, James, the son 
of Zebedee, has long since died by the sword of Herod, and James, 
the brother of our Lord, has lately fallen by the tumultuous judgment 
of the Sanhedrim. Jude's voice alone is heard, concurring with Peter's 
in denouncing the corruptions of the last times. During the years 
included within the range of doubt concerning the martyrdom of Paul 
and Peter (a. d. 66-68) the final revolt of the Jews has broken out; 
and an exterminating war only awaits its end in the destruction of 
the Temple. The death of the arch-persecutor suspends for two years 
the catastrophe by which the visible house of God is to make way for 
the spiritual edifice, which is now sufficiently completed to take its 
place. In that solemn interval some modern critics of high repute 
place the last inspired voice which was to complete the testimony of 
the Apostles and the canon of the Scriptures, and make the end of the 
work of St. Peter and St. Paul followed at once by the special work 
of St. John. 

" It was not till the removal of the first and the second Apostle 
from the scene of their earthly labors, that there burst upon the whole 
civilized world that awful train of calamities, which, breaking as it 
did on Italy, on Asia Minor, and on Palestine, almost simultaneously, 
though under the most different forms, was regarded alike by Roman, 
Christian and Jew, as the manifestation of the visible judgment of 
God. It was now, if we may trust the testimony alike of internal and 
external proof — in the interval between the death of Nero and the fall 
of Jerusalem — when the roll of apostolical Epistles seemed to have 
been finally closed, when every other inspired tongue had been hushed 
in the grave — that there rose from the lonely rock of Patmos that 
solemn voice which mingled with the storm that raged around it, as 
the dirge of an expiring world ; that under the " red and lowering 
sky," which had at last made itself understood to the sense of the 
dullest, there rose that awful vision of coming destiny, which has 
received the expressive name of the Revelation of St. John the Divine." 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 8T9 

Captivating, however, as is this view of the Apocalypse, the weight 
of external testimony, which places the banishment of St. John to 
Patmos under Domitian, makes it more than doubtful whether we can 
adopt the symmetrical arrangement which would close the New Testa- 
ment history with the fall of Jerusalem. But, though we may be com- 
pelled to place the great work of St. John, in his writings, after that 
event — as looking far forward into the future of the Christian Church 
— we may none the less regard the destruction of Jerusalem as the 
epoch at which Christianity emerged from its initiatory stage, with a 
Church completely organized, and numbering converts through the 
whole Roman Empire, and even beyond its borders to the East, to 
replace Judaism as the witness for the one true God. 

As the prophecy of that catastrophe finished the public testimony 
of Christ himself, so did its fulfilment set the seal to the work of his 
Apostles. The events themselves were not a more striking confirma- 
tion of the divine truth which had predicted them, than was the change 
that they effected the fulfilment of the divine plan of establishing a 
Church on earth ; nay, more, the anticipatory figure of the consumma- 
tion of all God's dealings with his people in this world. This mani- 
fold aspect may be seen throughout that last and greatest of our Lord's 
prophecies ; as indeed it is suggested by the very form of the question 
that called forth the discourse: "Tell us, when shall these things be" 
(that is, the time when " there shall not be left here one stone upon 
another which shall not be thrown down "), " and what shall be the 
sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?" They who put the 
question were so far from having a clear notion of the different epochs 
it embraced, that they were probably thinking of one and the same 
event ; nor was it our Lord's purpose to give them an explanation of 
those " times and seasons " which he emphatically declares that " no 
man knoweth, no, not the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but my 
Father only." It is no wonder, then, that a difficulty is still found 
in determining what parts of the discourse refer to the impending 
catastrophe of Jerusalem, and what to the final catastrophe of the 
world ; for, in truth, both subjects run through the discourse, in the 
relation of type and antitype. As the destruction of the Jewish polity 
and worship was, in reference to the past, the great climax of temporal 
judgment on those who had rejected God's ancient covenants, so, in 
relation to the future, it forms the great type of the last judgment. 
Each of God's three dispensations toward the disobedient is closed by 
a catastrophe, and all three are included in our Lord's discourse : the 
reckless security of those who perished in the flood being a pattern of 



880 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the folly both of the Jews and of the finally impenitent. The first 
of these was co-extensive with the race, which w r as placed, as a whole, 
under the patriarchal dispensation. The second closes the probation 
of the nation, who were chosen for the next experiment of the legal 
dispensation, with "great distress and wrath upon this people 11 — "tri- 
bulation such as was not since the beginning of the world : no, nor 
ever shall be." But that which gives tenfold force to the judgment, 
and forms the chief feature of its typical significance, is its relation to 
the advent and work of Christ himself. This is not only the key to 
the final prophecy, but Jesus had before intimated the same truth to 
the Pharisees who had asked him, " When the kingdom of God should 
come," and he told them that " first, he must suffer many things, and 
be rejected of this generation." So likewise he declares to his dis- 
ciples, " This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." 
It was fit that the generation which, while confessing themselves the 
children of those who killed the prophets, filled up the measure of 
their fathers, and brought upon themselves — by word as well as deed — 
all the blood of all the martyrs in the one crime of slaying Christ, 
should be the generation in whose time were " the days of vengeance, 
that all things which were written might be fulfilled :" — all the warnings 
of Moses and Joshua and all the prophets, all the ruin which Solomon, 
in the very act of dedicating the Temple, had prayed God to avert. 

But, so far from this being a limitation of the whole discourse to 
that time, it furnishes the very key to its typical character ; for the 
temporal fate of those who rejected the grace which crowned the 
ancient covenant is the very image of the final doom of those who 
refuse God's last offer of mercy, and for whom there remaineth no 
more sacrifice for sins. From this point of view, we may discern the 
full sense of those phrases which form the key-note of the whole 
prophecy — the coming of the Son of Man — the sign of the Son of Man, 
coming with power and great glory — the Son of Man in his day — 
when the Son of Man is revealed — the kingdom of God, already within 
(or among) them — which had come, in its beginning without observa- 
tion, but which, when all the antecedent signs shall be accomplished, 
— then, and not till then, should suddenly be revealed, "as the 
lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth 
unto the other part under heaven." 

In one sense, indeed, the anointed Kixg could not but come in his 
kingdom. The herald of his advent proclaimed that kingdom as at 
hand ; and he himself preached the Gospel of the Kingdom. His 
ministry was closed by his coming into the City and Temple amid 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 881 

Hosannas to the royal Son of David ; the inscription on his cross 
confirmed the title which the Jews gave in the very act of disowning 
him ; and, as the King of Glory, he burst the bands of death and 
entered the everlasting gates. But, in ascending to his throne, he 
left his kingdom upon earth to his chosen ministers, not only to bring 
the nations into subjection to him, but to convict the unbelieving 
Jews of having rejected their King : — " This Gospel of the kingdom 
must first be preached in all the world for a vntness unto all nations ; 
and then shall the end come:" the end, first of that inauguration of his 
kingdom, which was openly displayed when they who had rejected 
their King were rooted out from the place given to them by God ; 
and when the seat of David's throne and of Solomon's sanctuary 
was abolished, to make way for that which prophecy had declared 
should at once and forever replace them, the kingdom that is not of this 
world, the sanctuary — neither on Zion, nor on any other mountain — 
where "the true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and in truth." 
Such is the general sense in which the destruction of Jerusalem 
completes the First Advent of Christ; and his own prophecy indicates 
with wonderful minuteness the signs by which his people were to see 
his coming, and to be warned against the false prophets and false 
Christs whose pretensions were among those very signs. First come 
" wars, commotions, rumors of wars ; nation set against nation, and 
kingdom against kingdom :" — and the whole East was in a ferment, 
and Judsea in open insurrection, while the armies of Spain and Gaul 
and Germany, Illyricum and Syria, converged upon Italy, to decide 
who should succeed to Nero's purple. The throes of inanimate 
nature seemed to sympathize with the travail of the world : — and the 
histories of the age are full of " famines, pestilences, and earthquakes 
in divers places." " Fearful sights and great signs from heaven " 
appeared to mark the very spot at which the great judgment was to 
descend : — a comet shaped like a scimitar hung over the devoted city 
during the whole year before the war. Other portents are recorded, 
in the very exaggeration of which we trace how " men's hearts failed 
them for fear, and for looking after those things which were coming 
on the earth : " — an agitation which found a voice for several success- 
ive years in the monotonous cry of the fanatic, Jesus the son of 
Ananus, " Woe ! woe to Jerusalem ! Woe ! woe to the city and to 
the Temple." "All these were the beginning of sorrows" Mean- 
while the persecution of the Christians was to confirm their testimony 
for Christ, and to sever them from the fate of the ungodly nation, 
while they waited to see it, "possessing their souls in patience," 
56 



882 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

though not without danger to the steadfastness of many, oill the 
spread of the Gospel through the known world should give the signal 
for the catastrophe. The new house of God was to be built before 
the old one was taken down. 

The particular incidents, by which the disciples were to know the 
coming of the judgment, are next described with a minuteness which 
makes the prophecy the counterpart of the history of the siege. 
Before the foundations of the second Temple were laid, the prophet 
Daniel had predicted its desolation by the overspreading (or siege) of 
abominations, as an event following the cutting off of the Messiah. 
That word abomination had a definite sense to a Jewish ear, denoting 
the objects of heathen worship; and their fathers had received 
warning of what were the very abominations by which the Holy City 
was to be laid desolate, when Pompey carried the standards conse- 
crated to the heathen gods into the sanctuary of Jehovah. And now 
Christ warns his disciples that when they should see* the same 
abomination " standing where it ought not " — " in the holy place " — 
then they would " know that the desolation thereof is nigh :" and 
they must seek safety in a flight, the hurry, the danger, the distress 
of which he describes by the most striking images. The warning, 
neglected by the Jews, was heeded by the Christians. When they 
saw the standards — first of Cestius, and afterward of Vespasian — 
pitched upon the hill of Scopus, they recognized the sign, and, avail- 
ing themselves of the respite caused by the news of Xero's death and 
the contest of the Empire, they obeyed their Lord's injunction to 
"flee unto the mountains." The Christians retired in a body to 
Pella, beyond the Jordan, which became the seat of the Church of 
Jerusalem, till Hadrian permitted them to return to the restored city. 
Their withdrawal was the extinction of the last element of spiritual 
life in the city ; and the dead forms of Judaism were now only fit to 
be swept from the face of the earth in the manner which Christ had 
predicted before as well as now ; when, in answer to the question, 
Where these judgments should fall, he replied, " Wheresoever the 
carcase is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." 

The gathering horrors of the most terrible siege that, perhaps, the 
whole history of the world records, are described by our Lord in 
language not less impressive than the reality recorded by Josephus ; 
and, besides this prophecy, we have another which traces each step 
with startling minuteness: — "For the days shall come upon thee, that 
thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee around, 
and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground } 



LAST DAYS OF PAUL AND PETER. 883 

and thy children within thee; because thou knewest not the time of 
thy visitation." While Titus was completing his preparations at 
Csesarea, almost the whole Jewish population left in the desolated 
country districts flocked to Jerusalem, to keep the Passover of A. D. 
70, just one generation after that Passover at which they had refused 
their day of visitation and cut off the Messiah. Her children were 
still within her when, after an attempt to storm the city, the siege 
was converted into a blockade, and the fugitives, who fled from the 
unutterable horrors of famine and faction within the walls, perished 
between the lines, or were crucified in attitudes of cruel mockery 
to deter imitators. 

In another chapter we shall relate the progress of the 
siege ; the destruction of the Temple, in defiance of the 
most sacred instincts of Roman discipline ; the razing of the city to its 
foundations : but we may refer here to the testimony borne by the 
very agent of all these horrors to the presence of a higher power than 
his own. Titus exhausted every resource of terror and conciliation to 
avert the ruin of the city and the profanation of the sanctuary. As 
his horse's hoofs trampled on the putrefying corses that were thrown 
over from the walls, he lifted up his hands, and called the God of 
heaven to witness that this was not his work. When the tower of 
Antonia was razed, and his engines were brought up against the Tem- 
ple, he first pleaded through Josephus, and afterward appeared in per- 
son at the gates, to expostulate with the zealots against bringing arms 
and blood into the courts where even a stranger's presence was profa- 
nation. " I call on your gods — I call on my whole army — I call on 
the Jews who are with me — I call on yourselves — to witness, that I 
do not force you to this crime. Come forth, and fight in any other 
place, and no Roman shall violate your sacred edifice." The rejec- 
tion of this appeal, in reliance on the Messiah's appearance at the last 
moment to save his house, illustrates another feature of our Lord's 
prophecy. And when at last Titus was an eye-witness to the passive 
resistance of the massive stones against his mandate of destruction, he 
is reported to have exclaimed : — " God has been my helper ! God it 
was that pulled down the Jews from those formidable walls ; for what 
could the hands of men or their engines have availed against them ? *' 
The figures of the sacred furniture of the Temple, carved on the Arch 
of Titus at Rome, and the medals of Vespasian with the legend 
Judaea Capta, are the perpetual memorials of the utter removal of 
the ancient sanctuary ; but not that heathenism might claim the con- 
quest. The voice of our Lord had re-echoed the prophecy of Daniel, 



884 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

that "Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the 
times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled ; " and God's providence had 
already given warning of the fate of heathenism in the burning of the 
Capitol eight months before the destruction of the Temple. The 
lesson is well pointed by the historian of the Roman Empire : — " Pal- 
estine was the cradle of the Gospel : the Jews the people first divinely 
appointed to expound it. The destruction — never to be repaired — of 
their material Temple cut the cords which bound the new faith to its 
local habitation, and launched it, under the hand of Providence, on 
its career of spiritual conquest ; while the boasted restoration of the 
Capitol was a vain attempt to retain hold of the past, to revive the 
lost or perishing, to re-attach to new conditions of thought an outworn 
creed of antiquity." 

Thus it is that the destruction of Jerusalem may well be called the 
coming of the Son of Man, not only in just judgment upon those who 
had rejected him ; not only as a sovereign visits with desolation a 
rebellious province that has refused all offers of mercy ; but as the 
completion of the first great step in the establishment of his kingdom 
upon earth. And since this is the most momentous revolutionary 
epoch in the religious history of the world, that ever was or that ever 
shall be, it is fitly made, in the rest of the discourse, the type of the 
" coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven with power and 
great glory," to destroy all that is earthly and corrupt in the Church and 
world, to "gather his elect from the four winds of heaven," to judge 
the quick and the dead, and to establish his everlasting kingdom. 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 885 




CHAPTER XLIII. 

SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS AFTER THE DE- 
STRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
[a. d. 70 and onwards.] 

II HE epoch of the destruction of Jerusalem, at which the Son 
of Man visited as a judge the city that had rejected its King, 
and inaugurated that spiritual kingdom upon earth which 
had now been established in churches gathered from every 
nation of the civilized world — that epoch does not close the 
New Testament History. One Apostle, of those whose names are 
prominent in the foundation of the Church, not only remained upon 
the earth to fulfil his work, but the more special part of that work — 
according to the views generally held of the date of his writings — may 
be said to have been but just beginning. It was not till the founda- 
tion of Christianity was historically complete, that the Apostle John 
was divinely commissioned to utter prophecies of its future course, and 
to develop in his Epistles and Gospel those doctrinal aspects of our 
Lord's teaching which were needed to correct the heresies now rapidly 
taking their rise. As John the Baptist proclaimed the advent of 
Christ by the preaching of repentance to a degenerate people, so did 
John the Apostle recall churches that had already forsaken their first 
love and declined into heresy and vice, to prepare for his second 
coming. 

The prominent place filled by St. John in the Gospel history, as 
one of the four disciples who formed the innermost circle of our Lord's 
friends — the ixfoxtuv ixuxtotspot, — and the high distinction of being 
" the disciple whom Jesus loved," might raise our surprise at reading 
so little of him in the Acts, did we not reflect that his special work is 
to be sought for in his writings. The portion of his life which stands 
out in the broad daylight of the Gospels is preceded and followed by 
periods over which there brood the shadows of darkness and uncer- 
tainty. In the former, we discern only a few isolated facts, and are 
left to inference and conjecture to bring them together into something 
like a whole. In the latter we encounter, it is true, images more dis- 
tinct, pictures more vivid ; but with these there is the doubt whether 



886 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the distinctness and vividness are not misleading — whether half-tradi- 
tional, half-mythical narrative has not taken the place of history. 

In most passages of the Gospels, John is named in connection with 
his brother James ; and from the prevailing order it is inferred that 
he was the younger. Their father was Zebedee, their mother Salome, 
whom tradition makes the daughter of Joseph by his first wife, and 
consequently the half-sister to our Lord. They were brought up at 
Bethsaida, on the lake of Galilee, the town of that other pair of 
brothers — the sons of Jonas — who were to share with them the Lord's 
closest intimacy, and with whom we find them partners in their occu- 
pation of fishermen. The mention of the " hired servants," of Salome's 
" substance," of John's " own house," implies a position removed by 
at least some steps from absolute poverty. The fact that John was 
known to the high-priest Caiaphas — as that acquaintance was hardly 
likely to be formed with a disciple of Christ — suggests the probability 
of some early intimacy between the two families. Of Zebedee we 
know nothing beyond his interposing no refusal when his sons were 
called to leave him ; and his disappearance from the Gospel narrative 
ieads to the inference that his death set Salome free to join her chil- 
dren in ministering to the Lord. Her character presents to us the 
same great features that were conspicuous in her son. From her — 
who followed Jesus and ministered to him of her substance, who 
sought for her two sons that they might sit, one on his right hand, 
the other on his left, in his kingdom — he might well derive his strong 
affections, his capacity for giving and receiving love, his eagerness for 
the speedy manifestation of the Messiah's kingdom. 

The early years of the Apostle were passed under this influence. 
He would be trained in all that constituted the ordinary education of 
Jewish boyhood. Though not taught in the schools of Jerusalem, 
and therefore, in later life liable to the reproach of having no recog- 
nized position as a teacher, no Rabbinical education, he would yet be 
taught to read the Law and observe its precepts, to feed on the writings 
of the Prophets with the feeling that their accomplishment was not far 
off. For him too, as bound by the law, there would be, at the age of 
thirteen, the periodical pilgrimages to Jerusalem. He would become 
familiar with the stately worship of the Temple, with the sacrifice, the 
incense, the altar, and the priestly robes. May we not conjecture that 
then the impressions were first made which never afterward wore off? 
Assuming that there is some harmony between the previous training 
of a prophet and the form of the visions presented to him, may we not 
recognize them in the rich liturgical imagery of the Apocalypse; — in 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 887 

that union in one wonderful vision of all that was most wonderful 
and glorious in the prediction of the older prophets ? 

Concurrently with this there would be also the boy's outward life 
as sharing in his father's work. The great political changes which 
agitated the whole of Palestine would in some degree make themselves 
felt even in the village town in which he grew up. The Galilean 
fisherman must have heard, possibly with some sympathy, of the 
efforts made (when he was too young to join in them) by Judas of 
Gamala, as the great asserter of the freedom of Israel against their 
Roman rulers. Like other Jews, he would grow up with strong and 
bitter feeling against the neighboring Samaritans. Lastly, before we 
pass into a period of greater certainty, we must not forget to take into 
account that to this period of his life belongs the commencement of 
that intimate fellowship with Simon Bar-jonah of which we afterward 
find so many proofs. That friendship may even then have been, in 
countless ways, fruitful for good upon the hearts of both. 

We have already seen, in the history of our Saviour's life, that 
John was probably one of the two disciples of John the Baptist (the 
other being Andrew) who were the first to obey their Master's direc- 
tion to the " Lamb of God," and we have traced the chief incidents in 
his course as the disciple of Jesus Christ. Of the four who enjoyed 
their Lord's especial intimacy, while Peter appears as the leader of the 
apostolic band, to John belongs the higher distinction of being " the 
disciple whom Jesus loved ;" and this love is returned with a more 
single undivided heart by him than by any other. If Peter is the 
^ao^pitftfos, John is the ptikttiso&s. Some striking facts indicate why this 
was so, — what was the character thus worthy of the love of Jesus of 
Nazareth. They hardly sustain the popular notion, which is fostered 
by the received types of Christian art, of a nature gentle, yielding, 
effeminate. The name Boanerges implies a vehemence, zeal, inten- 
sity, which gave to those who bore it the might of Sons of Thunder. 
That spirit broke out once and again, — when they joined their mother 
in asking for the highest places in the kingdom of their Master, and 
declared that they were able to drink of the cup that he drank, and 
to be baptized with the baptism that he was baptized withj-^-when 
they rebuked one who cast out devils in their Lord's name, because 
he was not of their company, — when they sought to call down fire 
from heaven upon a village of the Samaritans. 

This energy added to the love of him who reclined at the Last 
Supper with his head upon his Master's breast the courage to follow 
him into the council-chamber of Caiaphas, and even the praetorium 



888 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of Pilate, and to stand by his cross — with Christ's mother and his 
own, and Mary Magdalene — when all the rest forsook him and fled. 
There he received the sacred trust, which must have influenced all his 
subsequent home life, giving him a second mother in the blessed 
Virgin. He gave a home also to the penitent Peter; and when they, 
first of the Apostles, learned from Mary Magdalene the resurrection 
of the Lord, it throws a light upon their respective characters that 
John is the more impetuous, running on most eagerly to the rock- 
tomb ; Peter, the less restrained by awe, is the first to enter in and 
look. So, too, when Jesus appeared to them by the Lake of Galilee, 
John is the first to recognize, in the dim form seen in the morning 
twilight, the presence of his risen Lord; Peter, the first to plunge into 
the water and swim toward the shore where he stood calling to them. 
The last words of the Gospel reveal to us the deep affection which 
united the two friends. It is not enough for Peter to know his own 
future. That at once suggests the question — " Lord, and what shall 
this man do?" The reply of Jesus, which was perverted into the 
legends that gather about the close of St. John's life, surely means 
something more than a rebuke of Peter's curiosity. The words — " If 
I will that he tarry till I come" — are doubtless a prophecy, as well as 
an hypothesis ; and they seem to intimate that, alone of all the Apos- 
tles, John should survive that catastrophe of the Old Dispensation in 
the destruction of Jerusalem, which made way for Christ's coming in 
his kingdom. 

The association of Peter and John appears still in the opening scenes 
of the Acts — their attendance together to worship in the Temple — the 
miracle of healing the blind man — the confessorship before the San- 
hedrim — the gift of the Holy Ghost to those very Samaritans on whom 
John once wished to call down fire from heaven. This is his last 
appearance in the Acts ; and he is not mentioned either in connection 
with Paul's first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion, nor as en- 
gaged in labors like those of Peter at Lydda, Joppa, and Caesarea, nor 
in the persecution in which the sword of Herod divided him from his 
brother James. Neither does St. John appear as taking an active part 
in the go-called " Council of Jerusalem ;" but he was present at the 
private conference of the Apostles with Paul and Barnabas; and Paul 
names John, with James and Cephas, as a " pillar " of the Church, and 
as one of those whose mission it was to "go to the circumcision." 

This one passage proves that the scene of John's labors thus far was 
Jerusalem and Judsea. To the work of teaching, organizing, and 
exhorting the Hebrew churches, may have been added special calls, 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 889 

like that which had drawn him with Peter to Samaria. The fulfil- 
ment of the solemn charge entrusted to John may have led him to a 
life of loving and reverent thought, rather than to one of conspicuous 
activity. We may, at all events, feel sure that it was a time in which 
the natural elements of his character, with all their fiery energy, were 
being purified and mellowed, rising step by step to that high serenity 
which we find perfected in the closing portion of his life. The tradi- 
tion which ascribes to him a life of celibacy receives some confirma- 
tion from the absence of his name in 1 Cor. ix. 5. It harmonizes 
with all we know of his character, to think of his heart as so absorbed 
in the higher and diviner love that there was no room left for the 
lower and the human. 

After a long interval, the Apostle re-appears in that close connec- 
tion with the churches of Asia Minor, which is attested alike by the 
Apocalpyse and by the uniform tradition of the Church. It is a 
natural conjecture that he remained in Judsea till the death of the 
Virgin released him from his trust. Tradition carries him from 
Judaea to Ephesus ; but it gives us no clear light as to the motives of 
his removal : the time is so variously fixed, under Claudius, Nero, or 
even Domitian, as to prove that nothing certain was known ; and our 
only safe conclusion is to reject the two extremes. 

The Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul absolutely exclude the idea of 
any connection of St. John with Ephesus down to their date, that is, 
to A. D. 66 at the earliest. On the other hand, it seems almost a neces- 
sary inference, from St. John's Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia, 
that the Apostle who writes to them with such high authority and 
such familiar knowledge of their condition, had already labored some 
time among them. This is in accordance with the analogy of St. 
Paul's letters to churches which he had recently visited — for example, 
the Thessalonians and Galatians ; but these cases may also warn us 
not to exaggerate the time of the previous ministration. It is the 
plain meaning of John's own words, in the opening of the Apoca- 
lypse, that he had been banished as a Christian confessor to the island 
of Patmos at a time of general persecution ; and the place seems to 
suggest that he had been arrested in the province of Asia. Though 
his banishment may have resulted from some more local and tempo- 
rary cause, the question has been generally narrowed to the issue be- 
tween the two great persecutions under Nero and Domitian. The 
consent of Christian antiquity is in favor of the latter view : the 
former is a modern theory, based on the internal evidence of the 
Book, and connected with a particular scheme of interpretation. 



90 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



Some of those who hold the later date regard the Apcalypse as the 
latest book of the New Testament ; but others place the Gospel and 
the Epistles after it. 

The tradition of the Church uniformly represents the Apostle as spend- 
ing his last days at Ephesus, and the general outline of his work there 
may be gathered from the Revelation and the Epistles. The facts which 
these writings assert or imply are — (1) that, having come to Ephesus, 
some persecution, local or general, drove him to Patmos : (2) that the 
Seven Churches, of which Asia was the centre, were special objects of 
his solicitude : (3) that in his work he had to encounter men who 
denied the truth on which his faith rested ; and others who, with a 
railing and malignant temper, disputed his authority. If to this we 
add that he must have outlived all, or nearly all, of those who had 
been the friends and companions even of his maturer years — that this 
lingering age gave strength to an old imagination that his Lord had 
promised him immortality — that, as if remembering the actual words 
which had been thus perverted, the longing of his soul gathered itself 
up in the cry, " Even so, come, Lord Jesus" — that from some who 
spoke with authority he received a solemn attestation of the confi- 
dence they reposed in him — we have stated all that has any claim to 
the character of historical truth. 

The picture which tradition fills up for us has the merit of being 
full and vivid, but it blends together, without much regard to har- 
mony, things probable and improbable. He is shipwrecked off 
Ephesus, and arrives there in time to check the progress of the here- 
sies which sprang up after St. Paul's departure. Then, or at a later 
period, he numbers among his disciples men like Polycarp, Papias, 
Ignatius. In the persecution under Domitian he is taken to Rome, 
and there, by his boldness, though not by death, gains the crown of 
martyrdom. The boiling oil into which he is thrown has no power 
to hurt him. He is then sent to labor in the mines, and Patmos is 
the place of his exile. The accession of Nerva frees him from dan- 
ger, and he returns to Ephesus. There he settles the canon of the 
Gospel history by formally attesting the truth of the first three Gos- 
pels, and writing his own to supply what they left wanting. The 
elders of the Church are gathered together, and St. John, as by a 
sudden inspiration, begins with the wonderful opening, " In the be- 
ginning was the Word." Heresies continue to show themselves, but 
he meets them with the strongest possible protest. He refuses to pass 
under the same roof (that of the public baths of Ephesus) as their 
foremost leader, lest the house should fall down on them and crush 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 



891 




CHRISTIAN - WOMEN MAKING GARMENTS FOR THE POOR. 



them. Through his agency the great temple of Artemis (Diana) is at 
length reft of its magnificence, and even levelled with the ground ! 
He introduces and perpetuates the Jewish mode of celebrating Easter. 
At Ephesus, if not before, as one who was a true priest of the Lord, 
he bore on his brow the plate of gold (*sVa&<w) with the sacred name 
engraved on it, which was the badge of the Jewish pontiff. In strange 
contrast with this ideal exaltation, a later tradition tells us how the 
old man used to find pleasure in the playfulness and fondness of 
a favorite bird, and how he defended himself against the charge of 
unworthy trifling by the familiar apologue of the bow that must some- 
times be unbent. 

More true to the New Testament character of the Apostle is the 
story, told by Clement of Alexandria, of his special and loving in- 
terest in the younger members of his flock ; of his eagerness and 
courage in the attempt to rescue one of them who had fallen into evil 
courses. The scene of the old and loving man, standing face to face 
with the outlaw chief whom, in days gone by, he had baptized, and 



892 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

winning him to repentance, is one which we could gladly look on as 
belonging to his actual life. 

Not less beautiful is that other scene which conies before us as the 
last act of his life. When all capacity to work and teach is gone — 
when there is no strength even to stand — the spirit still retains the 
power to love, and the lips are still open to repeat, without change and 
variation, the command which summed up all his Master's will — 
" Little children, love one another." 

The very time of the Apostle's death lies within the region of con- 
jecture rather than of history, and the dates that have been assigned 
for it range from A. D. 89 to A. D. 120. 

In relation to Christian doctrine, St. John is, as in the title of the 
Apocalypse, " John the Holy Divine " — the Theologus — not in the 
modern sense of a theologian, but from his witness that " the Word 
was God." This also was the fruit of his intimate converse with his 
Lord, and of a spirit fitted for such fellowship. Nowhere is the vision 
of the Eternal Word, "the glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father," so unclouded : nowhere are there such personal reminiscences 
of the Christ in his most distinctively human characteristics. It was 
this union of the two aspects of the Truth which made him the in- 
stinctive opponent of all forms of a mystical or logical or docetic 
Gnosticism. It was a true feeling which led the later intepreters of 
the mysterious forms of the four living creatures round the throne — 
departing in this instance from the earlier traditions — to see in him 
the Eagle that soars into the highest heaven, and looks upon the un- 
clouded sun. Descending from the regions of fancy to those facts on 
which the truth of the Gospel rests, it is this testimony to Christ that 
is so emphatically asserted alike in the opening of his General Epistle, 
and in what we may call the attestation clause of his Gospel — whether 
that clause was penned by an inspired self-consciousness, or added as 
the testimony of those among whom he lived and wrote : " This is the 
disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things, and 
we know that his testimony is true? 

When John the Baptist directed his disciples to the Lamb of God, 
"one of the two that heard John and followed Jesus was Andrew, 
Simon Peter's brother;" and, in seeking out his own brother Simon, 
he set the first example of brotherhood in Christ, and was the first to 
proclaim, " We have found the Messiah." The apparent discrepancy 
in Matt. iv. 18 ff., and Mark 16 ff., where the two appear to have 
been called together, is no real one, St. John relating the first intro- 
duction of the brothers to Jesus, the other Evangelists their formal 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 893 

call to follow him in his ministry. In the catalogue of the Apostles, 
Andrew appears, in Matt. x. 2, Luke vi. 14, second, next after his 
brother Peter; but in Mark iii. 16, Acts i. 14, fourth, next after the 
three, Peter, James and John, and in company with Philip. And this 
appears to have been his real place of dignity among the Apostles : 
for in Mark xiii. 3, we find Peter, James, John and Andrew inquiring 
privately of our Lord about his coming; and in John xii. 22, when 
certain Greeks wished for an interview with Jesus, they applied through 
Andrew, who consulted Philip, and in company with him made the 
request known to our Lord. This last circumstance, combined with 
the Greek character of both their names, may perhaps point to some 
slight shade of Hellenistic connection on the part of the two Apostles ; 
though it is extremely improbable that any of the Twelve were Hel- 
lenists in the proper sense. On the occasion of the five thousand in 
the wilderness wanting nourishment, it is Andrew who points out the 
little lad with the five barley loaves and the two fishes. Scripture 
relates nothing of him beyond these scattered notices. Whether he 
was Peter's elder or younger brother is uncertain. Except in the cata- 
logue (i. 14), his name does not occur once in the Acts. The tradi- 
tions about him are various. Eusebius makes him preach in Scythia ; 
Jerome and Theodoret in Achaia (Greece) ; Nicephorus in Asia Minor 
and Thrace. He is said to have been crucified, at Patrae in Achaia, 
on a crux decussata (X); but this is doubted by many. Eusebius 
speaks of an apocryphal Acts of Andrew. 

tfAMES, the Son of Zebedee, and brother of John, another of the 
four who formed, so to speak, the inner circle of the Apostolic band, 
is the only one of the Apostles of whose life and death we can write 
with certainty. The little that we know of him we have on the au- 
thority of Scripture. All else that is reported is idle legend, with the 
possible exception of one tale, handed down by Clement of Alexandria 
to Eusebius, and by Eusebius to us. There is no fear of confounding 
the St. James of the New Testament with the hero of Compostella. 

Of St. James' early life we know nothing. We first hear of him in 
A. D. 27, when he was called to be our Lord's disciple ; and he disap- 
pears from view in A. d. 44, when he suffered martyrdom at the hands 
of Herod Agrippa I. He does not appear in the Gospel narrative till 
the second call of the disciples at the Lake of Galilee. For a full year 
we lose sight of him. He is then, in the spring of A. D. 28, called to 
the apostleship with his eleven brethren. In the list of the Apostles 
given us by St. Mark, and in the book of Acts, his name occurs next 
to that of Simon Peter: in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke 



894 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

it comes third. It is clear that in these lists the names are not placed 
at random. In all four, the names of Peter, Andrew, James and John 
are placed first; and it is plain that these four Apostles were at the 
head of the twelve throughout. Thus we see that Peter, James and 
John alone were admitted to the miracle of the raising of Jairus's 
daughter. The same three Apostles alone were permitted to be present 
at the Transfiguration. The same three alone were allowed to witness 
the Agony. And it is Peter, James, John and Andrew who ask our 
Lord for an explanation of his dark sayings with regard to the end of 
the world and his second coming. It is worthy of notice that in all 
these places, with one exception, the name of James is put before that 
of John, and that John is twice described as " the brother of James." 
This would appear to imply that at this time James, either from age 
or character, took a higher position than his brother. On the last 
occasion on which St. James is mentioned we find this position re- 
versed. That the prominence of these three Apostles was founded on 
personal character (as out of every twelve persons there must be two 
or three to take the lead), and that it was not an office held by them, 
can scarcely be doubted. 

It would seem to have been at the time of the appointment of the 
Twelve Apostles that the name of Boanerges was given to the sons 
of Zebedee. It might, however, like Simon's name of Peter, have 
been conferred before. This name plainly was not bestowed upon 
them because they heard the voice like thunder from the clojud 
(Jerome), nor because of any peculiar majesty in their persons or 
impressiveness in their preaching; but it was, like the name given to 
Simon, at once descriptive and prophetic. The "Rockman" had a 
natural strength, which was described by his title, and he was to have 
a divine strength, predicted by the same title. In the same way the 
"Sons of Thunder" had a burning and impetuous spirit, which 
twice exhibits itself in its unchastened form, and which, when 
moulded by the Spirit of God, taking different shapes, led St. James 
to be the first Apostolic martyr, and St. John to become in an espe- 
cial manner the Apostle of Love. The occasions on which this 
natural character manifested itself have been noticed in speaking of 
St. John. 

From the time of the Agony in the Garden, A. D. 30, to the time 
of his martyrdom, A. D. 44, we know nothing of St. James except 
that after the Ascension he persevered in prayer with the other Apos- 
tles, and the women, and the Lord's brethren. In the year 44 Herod 
Agrippa L, son of Aristobulus, was ruler of all the dominions which 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 895 

at the death of his grandfather, Herod the Great, had been divided 
between Archelaus, Antipas, Philip, and Lysanias. He had received 
from Caligula, Trachonitis in the year 37, Galilee and Persea in the 
year 40. On the accession of Claudius, in the year 41, he received 
from him Idumsea, Samaria, and Judsea. This sovereign was at once 
a subtle statesman and a stern Jew : a king with not a few grand 
and kingly qualities, at the same time eaten up with Jewish pride — 
the type of a lay Pharisee. " He was very ambitious to oblige the 
people with donations," and " he was exactly careful in the observance 
of the laws of his country, keeping himself entirely pure, and not 
allowing one day to pass over his head without its appointed sacri- 
fice." Policy and inclination would alike lead such a monarch " to 
lay hands " (not " stretch forth his hands/' A. V. Acts xii. 1) " on 
certain of the church f 9 and accordingly, when the Passover of the 
year 44 had brought St. James and St. Peter to Jerusalem, he seized 
them both, considering doubtless that if he cut off the " Son of 
Thunder " and the " Rockman," the new sect would be more tract- 
able or more weak under the presidency of James the Just, for whose 
character he probably had a lingering and sincere respect. James 
was apprehended first — his natural impetuosity of temper would seem 
to have urged him on even beyond Peter. And " Herod the king," 
the historian simply tells us, " killed James the brother of John with 
the sword." This is all we know for certain of his death. We may 
notice two things respecting it — first, that James is now described as 
the brother of John, whereas previously John had been described as 
the brother of James, showing that the reputation of John had in- 
creased, and that of James diminished, by the time that St. Luke 
wrote ; and secondly, that he perished not by stoning, but by the 
sword. The Jewish law laid down that if seducers to strange wor- 
ship were few, they should be stoned ; if many, that they should be 
beheaded. Either, therefore, Herod intended that James's death 
should be the beginning .of a sanguinary persecution, or he merely 
followed the Roman custom of putting to death from preference. 

The death of so prominent a champion left a huge gap in the ranks 
of the infant society, which was filled partly by St. James, the 
brother of our Lord, commonly called James the Less, or the 
Little, who now steps forth into greater prominence in Jerusalem, 
and partly by St. Paul, who had now been seven years a convert, and 
who shortly afterward set out on his first Apostolic journey. The 
position into which the former now comes forward leads us to depart 
from the order of the Gospel lists. We have already stated the 



896 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

reasons for identifying him with James, the son of Alphseus. Of the 
father of James, whose Hebrew name is rendered by St. Matthew and 
St. Mark Alphceus, and by St. John Clopas, we know nothing, except 
that he married Mary, the sister of the Virgin Mary, and had by 
her four sons and three or more daughters. He appears to have died 
before the commencement of our Lord's ministry, and after his death 
it would seem that his wife and her sister, a widow like herself, and 
in poor circumstances, lived together in one house, generally at 
Xazareth, but sometimes also at Capernaum and Jerusalem. It is 
probable that these cousins, or, as they were usually called, brothers 
and sisters, of the Lord were older than himself; as on one occasion 
we find them, with his mother, indignantly declaring that he was 
beside himself, and going out to "lay hold of him " and compel him 
to moderate his zeal in preaching, at least sufficiently a to eat bread." 
This looks like the conduct of elders toward one voungef than thein- 
selves. 

Of James individually we know nothing till the spring of the year 
28, when we find him, together with his younger brother Jude, 
called to the Apostolate. It has been noticed that in al 1 the four 
lists of the Apostles, James holds the same place, heading the third 
class, consisting of himself, Jude, Simon and Iscariot; as Philip 
heads the second class, consisting of himself, Bartholomew, Thomas 
and Matthew; and Simon Peter the first, consisting of himself, 
Andrew, James and John. The fact of Jude being described by 
reference to James, shows the name and reputation which James had, 
either at the time of the calling of the Apostles or at the time when 
St. Luke wrote. 

It is not likely (though far from impossible) that James and Jude 
took part with their brothers and sisters, and the Virgin Mary, in 
trying "to lay hold on" Jesus in the autumn of the same year; and 
it is likely, though not certain, that it is of the other brothers and 
sisters, without these two, that St. John says, " Neither did his 
brethren believe on him," in the autumn of A. D. 29. 

We hear no more of James till after the Crucifixion and the Resur- 
rection. At some time in the forty days that intervened between the 
Resurrection and the Ascension, the Lord appeared to him. This is 
not related by the Evangelists, but it is mentioned by St. Paul ; and 
there never has been any doubt that it was to this James rather than 
to the son of Zebedee that the manifestation was vouchsafed. We 
may conjecture that it was for the purpose of strengthening him for 
the high position which he was soon to assume in Jerusalem, and of 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 897 

giving him the instructions on " the things pertaining to the kingdom 
of God," which were necessary for his guidance, that the Lord thus 
showed himself to James. We cannot fix the date of this appearance. 
It was probably only a few days before the Ascension ; after which 
we find James, Jude, and the rest of the Apostles, together with the 
Virgin Mary, Simon and Joses, in Jerusalem, awaiting in faith and 
prayer the outpouring of the Pentecostal gift. 

Again we lose sight of James for ten years, and when he appears 
once more it is in a far higher position than any that he has yet held. 
In the year 37 occurred the conversion of Saul. Three years after 
his conversion he paid his first visit to Jerusalem, but the Christians 
recollected what they had suffered at his hands, and feared to have 
anything to do with him. Barnabas, at this time of far higher repu- 
tation than himself, took him by the hand, and introduced him to 
Peter and James, and by their authority he was admitted into the 
society of the Christians, and allowed to associate freely with them 
during the fifteen days of his stay. Here we find James on a level 
with Peter, and with him deciding on the admission of St. Paul into 
fellowship with the Church at Jerusalem ; and from henceforth we 
always find him equal, or in his own department superior, to the very 
chiefest Apostles, Peter, John and Paul. For by this time he had 
been appointed (at what exact date we know not) to preside over the 
infant Church in its most important centre, in a position equivalent 
to that of Bishop. This pre-eminence is evident throughout the 
after-history of the Apostles, whether we read it in the Acts, in the 
Epistles, or in ecclesiastical writers. Thus in the year 44, when Peter 
is released from prison, he desires that information of his escape may 
be given to "James, and to the brethren." In the year 49 he pre- 
sides at the Apostolic Council, and delivers the judgment of the 
Assembly, with the expression " Wherefore my sentence is." In the 
same year (or perhaps in the year 51, on his fourth visit to Jerusalem) 
St. Paul recognizes James as one of the pillars of the Church, together 
with Cephas and John, and places his name before them both. 
Shortly afterward it is " certain who came from James," that is, from 
the mother Church of Jerusalem, designated by the name of its 
Bishop, who led Peter into tergiversation at Antioch. And in the 
year 57 Paul pays a formal visit to James in the presence of all his 
presbyters, after having been previously welcomed with joy the day 
before by the brethren in an unofficial manner. 

Entirely accordant with these notices of Scripture is the universal 
testimony of Christian antiquity to the high office held by James in 
57 



898 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the Church of Jerusalem. That he was formally appointed Bishop 
of Jerusalem by the Lord himself, as reported by Epiphanius, Chry- 
sostom, Proclus of Constantinople, and Photius, is not likely. Euse- 
bius follows this account in a passage of his history, but says elsewhere 
that he was appointed by the Apostles. Clement of Alexandria is 
the first author who speaks of his Episcopate, and he alludes to it as 
a thing of which the chief Apostles, Peter, James and John, might 
well have been ambitious. The same Clement reports that the Lord, 
after his resurrection, delivered the gift of knowledge to James the 
Just, to John, and to Peter, who delivered it to the rest of the Apos- 
tles, and they to the Seventy. This at least shows the estimation in 
which James was held. But the author to whom we are chiefly 
indebted for an account of the life and death of James is Hegesippus 
(i. e., Joseph), a Christian of Jewish origin, who lived in the middle 
of the second century. His narrative gives us such an insight into 
the position of St. James in the Church of Jerusalem, that it is best 
to let him relate it in his own words : 

Tradition respecting James, as given by Hegesippus. — " With the 
Apostles, James, the brother of the Lord, succeeds to the charge of 
the Church — that James who has been called Just from the time of 
the Lord to our own days, for there were many of the name of James. 
He was holy from his mother's womb, he drank not wine or strong 
drink, nor did he eat animal food ; a razor came not upon his head ; 
he did not anoint himself with oil; he did not use the bath. He 
alone might go into the holy place ; for he wore no woollen clothes, 
but linen. And alone he used to go into the Temple, and there he 
was commonly found upon his knees, praying for forgiveness for the 
people, so that his knees grew dry and thin [generally translated 
hard~\ like a camel's, from his constantly bending them in prayer, and 
entreating forgiveness for the people. On account therefore of his 
exceeding righteousness he was called i Just/ and 'Oblias/ which 
means in Greek ' the bulwark of the people/ and ' righteousness/ as 
the prophets declare of him. Some of the seven sects then that I 
have mentioned inquired of him, ' What is the door of Jesus ?' And 
he said that this man was the Saviour, wherefore some believed that 
Jesus is the Christ. Now the fore-mentioned sects did not believe in the 
Resurrection, nor in the coming of one who shall recompense every man 
according to his works ; but all who became believers believed through 
James. When many, therefore, of the rulers believed, there was a 
disturbance among the Jews, and Scribes, and Pharisees, saying, 
' There is a risk that the whole people will expect Jesus to be the 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 899 

Christ.' They came together therefore to James, and said, ' We pray 
thee, stop the people, for they have gone astray after Jesus as though 
he were the Christ. We pray thee to persuade all that come to the 
Passover concerning Jesus : for we all give heed to thee, for we and 
all the people testify to thee, that thou art just, and acceptest not the 
person of man. Persuade the people therefore not to go astray about 
Jesus, for the whole people and all of us give heed to thee. Stand 
therefore on the gable of the Temple, that thou mayest be visible, and 
that thy words may be heard by all the people ; for all the tribes and 
even the Gentiles are come together for the Passover.' Therefore the 
fore-mentioned Scribes and Pharisees placed James upon the gable of 
the Temple, and cried out to him, and said, ' O Just one, to whom 
we ought all to give heed, seeing that the people are going astray 
after Jesus who was crucified, tell us what is the door of Jesus ? ' 
And he answered with a loud voice, ' Why ask ye me about Jesus the 
Son of Man ? He sits in heaven on the right hand of great power, 
and will come on the clouds of heaven.' And many were convinced 
and gave glory on the testimony of James, crying ' Hosannah to the 
Son of David.' Whereupon the same Scribes and Pharisees said to 
each other, ' We have done ill in bringing forward such a witness to 
Jesus ; but let us go up, and throw him down, that they maybe terri- 
fied, and not believe on him.' And they cried out, saying, ( Oh ! oh ! 
even the Just is gone astray.' And they fulfilled that which is writ- 
ten in Isaiah, ' Let us take away the just man, for he is displeasing to 
us ; therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their deeds.' They went 
up therefore, and threw down the Just one, and said one to another, 
' Let us stone James the Just.' And they began to stone him, for he 
was not killed by the fall ; but he turned round, and knelt down, 
and cried, * I beseech thee, Lord God Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do.' And while they were stoning him, one of 
the priests, of the sons of Rechab, a son of the Rechabites, to whom 
Jeremiah the prophet bears testimony, cried out and said, ' Stop ! 
What are you about? The Just one is praying for you!' Then 
one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he pressed the 
clothes, and brought it down on the head of the Just one. And so 
he bore his witness. And they buried him on the spot by the Tem- 
ple, and the column still remains by the Temple. This man was a 
true witness to Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ. And im- 
mediately Vespasian cemmenced the siege." 

For the difficulties which occur in this extract, reference may be 
made to Routh's Rdiquice Sacrce, and to Dean Stanley's "Apostolical 



900 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Age." It represents St. James to us in his life and in his death more 
vividly than any modern words could picture him. We see him, a 
married man perhaps, but in all other respects a rigid and ascetic fol- 
lower after righteousness, keeping the INazarite rule, like Anna the 
prophetess, serving the Lord in the Temple " with fastings and prayers 
night and day," regarded by the Jews themselves as one who had 
attained to the sanctity of the priesthood, though not of the priestly 
family or tribe (unless indeed we argue from this that Clopas did 
belong to the tribe of Levi, and draw thence another argument for 
the identity of James the son of Clopas and James the Lord's brother), 
and as the very type of what a righteous or just man ought to be. If 
any man could have converted the Jews, as a nation, to Christianity, 
it would have been James. 

Josephus, as already more than once referred to, says that in the 
interval between the death of Festus and the coming of Albinus, 
Ananus the high-priest assembled the Sanhedrim, and " brought before 
it James the brother of him who is called Christ, and some others, and 
having charged them with breaking the laws, delivered them over to 
be stoned." The historian adds that the better part of the citizens 
disliked what was done, and complained of Ananus to Agrippa and 
Albinus, whereupon Albinus threatened to punish him for having 
assembled the Sanhedrim without his consent, and Agrippa deprived 
him of the high-priesthood. The words " brother of him who is called 
Christ" are judged by many to be spurious. 

Epiphanius gives the same account that Hegesippus does, in some- 
what different words, having evidently copied it for the most part from 
him. He adds a few particulars which are probably mere assertions 
or conclusions of his own. He considers James to have been the son 
of Joseph by a former wife, and calculates that he must bave been 
ninety-six years old at the time of his death; and adds, on the au- 
thority, as he says, of Eusebius, Clement, and others, that he wore the 
Tttraxov on his forehead, in which he probably confounds him with St. 
John. Gregory of Tours reports that he was buried, not where he 
fell, but on the Mount of Olives, in a tomb in which he had already 
buried Zacharias and Simeon. 

We have seen that there mav be a reference to James in Heb. xiii. 

ml 

7, which would fix his death at some time previous to the writing of 
that Epistle. His apprehension by Ananus was probably about the 
year 62 or 63. There is nothing to fix the date of his martyrdom as 
narrated by Hegesippus, except that it must have been shortly before 
the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem. We may conjecture 
that he was between seventy and eighty years old. 




yui 



902 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Still following the connection of name with name, rather than the 
order of the lists of the Apostles, we come to the second person of 
the third group, Jude or Judas (that is Judah), " the brother of 
James/' as he is called by our translators, and as he distinctly calls 
himself, if he be the author of the Epistle of Jude. It cannot be 
doubted that the same Apostle is meant in the passage of St. John's 
Gospel where he is called simply Judas, but distinguished from Judas 
Iscariot. The one question which he addresses to the Lord — " How 
is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" 
— a question which shows him as sharing the low temporal views of 
his Master's kingdom — and the mention of him as abiding with the 
other Apostles at Jerusalem, in prayer and supplication, after the 
Ascension, are the only special notices of him. 

But, on comparing the lists of the Apostles given by the three 
Evangelists, we find the place occupied by the name of Jade, in Luke, 
filled by that of Lebbceus in Matthew, and that of Thaddceus in Mark. 
All the discussion which the variety has provoked does but lead back 
to the plain inference, generally accepted, that Jude, Labbceus and 
Thaddceus were three names for one and the same Apostle, who is 
therefore said by Jerome to have been trionymus. 

Nothing is certainly known of the later history of the Apostle. 
There may be some truth in the tradition which connects him with 
the foundation of the Church at Edcssa; though here again there is 
much confusion, and doubt is thrown over the account by its connec- 
tion with the worthless fiction of "Abgarus, king of Edessa." Nice- 
phorus makes Jude die a natural death in that city after preaching in 
Palestine, Syria, and Arabia. The Syrian tradition speaks of his 
abode at Edessa, but adds that he went thence to Assyria, and was 
martyred in Phoenicia on his return ; while that of the west makes 
Persia the field of his labors and the scene of his martyrdom. 

The name of Simon the Canaanite, or Zeeotes, completes (with 
the exception of Judas Iscariot) the third group of the Apostles, oc- 
cupying th% eleventh place in Matthew and Mark, and the tenth in 
Luke. The two epithets attached to his name have the same signifi- 
cation, the latter being the Greek translation of the former, which is 
Chaldee. Both point him out as belonging to the faction of the Zea- 
lots, who were distinguished for their fierce advocacy of the Mosaic 
ritual, and who played so conspicuous a part in the last defence of 
Jerusalem. We have here a proof of the varied characters gathered 
together in the Apostolic band. 

Simon is not mentioned in the New Testament, except in the lists 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 903 

of the Apostles. He is reported, on very doubtful authority, to have 
preached in Egypt, Cyrene and Mauritania, and to have been cruci- 
fied in Judaea under Domitian. 

Of Judas Iscaeiot, who stands last in this third group, all that 
is historical has been related in the Gospel History ; and the solemn 
lessons taught by his character and fate lie beyond the province of 
this work. But his place was not left vacant in the foundation of the 
Apostolic Church. "Another took the office " of the fallen Apostle, 
when Matthias was chosen in the manner previously related. All 
that we know of Matthias for certain beyond this is that he had been 
a constant attendant upon the Lord Jesus during the whole course of 
his ministry ; for such was declared by St. Peter to be the necessary 
qualification of one who was to be a witness of the resurrection. The 
name of Matthias occurs in no other place in the New Testament, 
and we may accept as probable the opinion which is shared by Euse- 
bius and Epiphanius, that he was one of the seventy disciples. It is 
said that he preached the Gospel and suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia. 
An apocryphal gospel was published under his name, and Clement 
of Alexandria quotes from the Traditions of Matthias. 

The middle group in the list of the Apostles consists of four names, 
each of which has some peculiar interest, Philip and Bartholomew, 
Matthew and Thomas. These four, though not sharing the same 
intimate converse with their Master as Peter and Andrew, James and 
John, are much more prominent in the Gospel narrative than the last 
four. Two of them were among our Saviour's first disciples; Mat- 
thew was one of his early converts; and Thomas, whose name stands 
in close connection with Matthew, probably became a disciple before 
any of the third group. 

At the head of this second group stands Philip. He is mentioned 
as being of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter, and apparently 
was among the Galilean peasants of that district who flocked to hear 
the preaching of the Baptist. The manner in which St. John speaks 
of him, the repetition by him of the self-same words with which 
Andrew had brought to Peter the good news that the Christ had at 
last appeared, all indicate a previous friendship with the sons of 
Jonah and of Zebedee, and a consequent participation in their Messi- 
anic hopes. The close union of the two in John vi. and xii. suggests 
that he may have owed to Andrew the first tidings that the hope had 
been fulfilled. The statement that Jesus found him implies a previ- 
ous seeking. To him first, in the whole circle of the disciples, were 
spoken the words so full of meaning, " Follow me." As soon as he 



904 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

has learned to know his Master, he is eager to communicate his 
discovery to another who had also shared the same expectations. He 
speaks to Nathanael, probably on his arrival in Cana. as though thev 
had not seldom communed together of the intimations of a better 
time, of a divine kingdom, which they found in their sacred books. 
We may well believe that he, like his friend, was an ( " Israelite 
indeed in whom there was no guile.*' In the lists of the Twelve 
Apostles in the synoptic Gospels, his name is as uniformly at the 
head of the second group of four as the name of Peter is at that of 
the first ; and the facts recorded by St. John eive the reason for this 
priority. In those lists again we find his name uniformly coupled 
with that of Bartholomew, and this has led to the hypothesis that 
the latter is identical with the Xathanael of John i. 45, the one being: 
the personal name, the other, like Bar-jonah or Bartiimeus, a 
patronymic. 

Philip apparently was among the first company of disciples who 
were with the Lord at the commencement of his ministry, at the 
marriage of Cana, and on his first appearance as a prophet in Jeru- 
salem. "When John was cast into prison, and the work of declaring 
the glad tidings of the kingdom required a new company of preachers, 
we may believe that he, like his companions and friends, received a 
new call to a more constant discipleship. When the Twelve were 
specially set apart for their office, he was numbered among them. 
The first three Gospels tell us nothing more of him individually. 
St. John, with his characteristic fulness of personal reminiscences, 
records a few significant utterances. When the Galilean crowds had 
halted on their way to Jerusalem to hear the preaching of Jesus, and 
were faint with hunger, it was to Philip that the question was put, 
" Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?" "And this he 
said." St. John adds, "to prove him. for he himself knew what he 
would do."' The answer, " Two hundred pennyworth of bread is 
not sufficient for them that every one may take a little," shows how 
little he was prepared for the work of divine power that followed. 
It is noticeable that here, as in John i.. he appears in close connection 
with Andrew. 

Another incident is brought before us in John xii. 20-22. Among 
the pilgrims who had come to keep the Passover at Jerusalem, were 
some Gentile proselytes (Hellenes) who had heard of Jesus, and de- 
sired to see him. The Greek name of Philip may have attracted 
them. The zealous love which he had shown in the case of Xathanael 
may have made him prompt to offer himself as their guide. But it is 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY 



905 



characteristic of him that he does not take them at once to the presence 
of his Master. " Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and again An- 
drew and Philip tell Jesus." The friend and fellow-townsman to 
whom probably he owed his own introduction to Jesus of Nazareth is 
to introduce these strangers also. 

There is a connection not difficult to be traced between this fact and 
that which follows on the last recurrence of Philip's name in the his- 
tory of the Gospels. The desire to see Jesus gave occasion to the 
utterance of words in which the Lord spoke more distinctly than ever 
of the presence of his Father with him, and to the voice from heaven 
which manifested the Father's will. The words appear to have sunk 
into the heart of at least one of the disciples, and he brooded over 
them. The strong cravings of a passionate but unenlightened faith 
led him to feel that one thing was yet wanting. They heard their 
Lord speak of his Father and of their Father. He was going to his 
Father's house. They were to fol- 
low him there. But why should 
they not have even now a vision of 
the Divine glory ? It was part of 
the child-like simplicity of Philip's 
nature that no reserve should hin- 
der the expression of the craving, 
" Lord, show us the Father, and it 
sufficeth us." And the answer to 
that desire belonged also specially 
to him. He had all along been 
eager to lead others to see Jesus. 

He had been with him, looking on him from the very commencement 
of his ministry, and yet he had not known him. He had thought of 
the glory of the Father as consisting in something else than the Truth, 
Righteousness, Love that he had witnessed in the Son. " Have I 
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? 
He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. How sayest thou, Show 
us the Father?" No other fact connected with the name of Philip is 
recorded in the Gospels. The close relation in which we have seen 
him standing to the sons of Zebedee and Nathanael might lead us to 
think of him as one of the two unnamed disciples in the list of fisher- 
men of the Sea of Tiberias who meet us in John xxi. He is among 
the company of disciples at Jerusalem after the Ascension, and on the 
day of Pentecost. 

After this all is uncertain and apocryphal. He is mentioned by 




wine press. 



906 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Clement of Alexandria as having had a wife and children, and as 
having sanctioned the marriage of his daughters instead of binding 
them to vows of chastity, and is included in the list of those who had 
borne witness of Christ in their lives, but had not died what was com- 
monly looked on as a martyr's death. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, 
speaks of him as having fallen asleep in the Phrygian Hierapolis, as 
having had two daughters who had grown old unmarried, and a third, 
with special gifts of inspiration, who had died at Ephesus. There 
seems, however, in this mention of the daughters of Philip, to be some 
confusion between the Apostle and the Evangelist. The apocryphal 
"Acta Philippi" are utterly wild and fantastic, and if there is any 
grain of truth in them, it is probably the bare fact that the Apostle or 
the Evangelist labored in Phrygia, and died at Hierapolis. 

Bartholomew is a patronymic, the son of Talmai. His own 
name nowhere appears in the three first Gospels. It has been not 
improbably conjectured that he is identical with Nathanael. Na- 
thanael there appears to have been first brought to Jesus by Philip; 
and in the three first catalogues of the Apostles (cited above) Bar- 
tholomew and Philip appear together. It is difficult also to imagine, 
from the place assigned to Nathanael in John xxi. 2, that he can have 
been other than an Apostle. If this may be assumed, he was born at 
Cana of Galilee : and he is said to have preached the Gospel in India, 
meaning thereby, probably, Arabia Felix, which was sometimes called 
India by the ancients. Some allot Armenia to him as his mission- 
field, and report him to have been there flayed alive and then cruci- 
fied with his head downward. 

Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist, is the same as Levi, the 
son of a certain Alphseus. His call to be an Apostle is related by all 
three Evangelists in the same words, except that Matthew gives the 
former, and Mark and Luke the latter name. If there were two pub- 
licans, both called solemnly in the same form at the same place, Ca- 
pernaum, then one of them became an Apostle, and the other was 
heard of no more; for Levi is not mentioned again after the feast 
which he made in our Lord's honor. This is most unlikely. Euthy- 
mius and many other commentators of note identify Alphseus the 
father of Matthew with Alphseus the father of James the Less. 
Against this is to be set the fact that in the lists of Apostles, Matthew 
and James the Less are never mentioned together, like other pairs of 
brothers in the Apostolic body. It may be, as in other cases, that 
the name Levi was replaced by the name Matthew at the time of 
the call. The names Matthseus and Matthias are probably both con- 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 907 

tractions of Mattathias, a common Jewish name after the exile; but 
the tru3 deriv ition is not certain. He belc nged to the sordid class 
of portitores, the collectors under the publicani, who, as a rule, were 
worthy of the hatred with which the Jews regarded them. The 
readiness, however, with which Llatthew obeyed the call of Jesus 
seems to show that his heart was still open to religious impressions. 
His conversion was attended by a great awakening of the outcast 
classes of the Jews. Matthew, in his Gospel, does not omit the title 
of infamy which had belonged to him, but neither of the other Evan- 
gelists speaks of "Matthew the publican." Of the exact share which 
fell to him in preaching the Gospel nothing whatever is told us in the 
New Testament, and other sources of information we cannot trust. 

Eusebius mentions that after our Lord's ascension Matthew preached 
in Judsea (some add for fifteen years), and then went to foreign na- 
tions. To the lot of Matthew it fell to visit Ethiopia, says Socrates 
Scholasticus. Ambrose says that God opened to him the country of 
the Persians; Isidore, the Macedonians; and others, the Parthians, 
the Medes, the Persians of the Euphrates : but nothing whatever is 
really known. Lleracleon, the disciple of Valentinus (cited by Clemens 
Alexandrinus) describes him as dying a natural death, which Clement, 
Origeh ; and Tertullian seem to accept : the tradition that he died a 
martyr came in afterward. 

All that we know of Thomas is derived from the Gospel of St. 
John ; and this amounts to three traits, which, however, so exactly 
agree together, that, slight as they are, they place his character before 
us with a precision which belongs tc no other of the twelve Apostles, 
except Peter, John, and Judas Iscariot. This character is that of a 
man slow to believe, seeing all the difficulties of a case, subject to 
despondency, viewing things on the darker side, and yet full of ardent 
love for his Master. 

The first trait is his speech when our Lord determined to face the 
dangers that awaited him in Judsea on his journey to Bethany. Thomas 
said to his fellow-disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with 
him." He entertained no hope of his escape; he looked on the jour- 
ney as leading to total ruin ; but he determined to share the peril. 
"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 

The second was his speech during the Last Supper : " Thomas saith 
unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we 
know the way ?" It was the prosaic, incredulous doubt as to moving 
a step in the unseen future, and yet an eager inquiry to know how this 
step was to be taken. 



908 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The third was after the Resurrection. He was absent — possibly by- 
accident, perhaps characteristically — from the first assembly when 
Jesus appeared. The others told him what they had seen. He broke 
forth into an exclamation, the terms of which convey to us at once the 
vehemence of his doubt, and at the same time the vivid picture that 
his mind retained of his Master's form as he had last seen him lifeless 
on the cross. " Except I see on his hands the print of the nails, and 
put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his 
side, I will not, I cannot believe." 

On the eighth day he was with them at their gathering, perhaps in 
expectation of a recurrence of the visit of the previous week ; and 
Jesus stood among them. He uttered the same salutation, " Peace be 
unto you f and then turning to Thomas, as if this had been the special 
object of his appearance, uttered the words which convey as strongly 
the sense of condemnation and tender reproof, as those of Thomas had 
shown the sense of hesitation and doubt. "Bring thy finger hither 
[wgs — as if himself pointing to his wounds] and see my hands ; and 
bring thy hand and thrust it in my side ; and do not become (ji7j yivov) 
unbelieving (artioro$) 9 but believing (70.5x6$)." 

The effect on Thomas is immediate. The conviction produced by 
the removal of his doubt became deeper and stronger than that of any 
of the other Apostles. The words in which he expressed his belief 
contain a far higher assertion of his Master's divine nature than can 
be traced in any other expression used by Apostolic lips, " My Lord 
and my God." And the word "my" gives it a personal application 
to himself. The answer of our Lord sums up the moral of the whole 
narrative : " Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed : blessed are 
they that have not seen me, and yet have believed." Bv this incident, 
therefore, Thomas, "the Doubting Apostle," is raised at once to the 
theologian in the original sense of the word. It is this feature of his 
character which has been caught in later ages, when for the first time 
its peculiar lesson became apparent. In the famous statue of him by 
Thorwaldsen in the church at Copenhagen, he stands, the thoughtful, 
meditative skeptic, with the rule in his hand for the due measuring 
of evidence and argument. In the New Testament we hear of Thomas 
only twice again, once on the Sea of Galilee with the seven disciples, 
where he is ranked next after Peter, and again in the assemblage of 
the Apostles after the Ascension. 

The earlier traditions, as believed in the fourth century, represent 
him as preaching in Parthia or Persia, and as finally buried at Edessa. 
Chrvsostom mentions his grave at Edessa, as being one of the four 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 909 

genuine tombs of Apostles; the other three being those of Peter, Paul 
and John. With his burial at Edessa agrees the story of his sending 
Thaddaeus to Abgarus with our Lord's letter. 

The later traditions carry him further East, and ascribe to him the 
foundation of the Christian Church in Malabar, which still goes by 
the name of " the Christians of St. Thomas ;" and his tomb is shown 
in the neighborhood. This, however, is now usually regarded as 
arising from a confusion with a later Thomas, a missionary from the 
Nestorians. His martyrdom (whether in Persia or India) is said to 
have been effected by a lance. 

To these twelve Apostles two more were added specially for the 
mission to the Gentiles, for we have seen that Barnabas, as well as 
Paul, is expressly designated by that title. The word Barnabas is an 
appellative -©signifying the "son of prophecy" or u exhortation/' 
rather than of " consolation " — given by the Apostles to Joseph, a 
Levite of the island of Cyprus. We have already seen his Christian 
devotedness, as contrasted with the self-seeking of Ananias; how he 
justified his title by his ministry at Antioch; how he introduced Paul 
to the Apostles after his conversion ; how he sought him out at Tarsus, 
labored with him at Antioch, w T ent up with him twice to Jerusalem, 
and shared his first missionary journey ; and how, on the proposal of 
the second, the fellow-laborers were severed by their dispute about 
John Mark. 

If we may judge from the hint furnished by the fact that Paul was 
commended by the brethren to the grace of God, it would seem that 
Barnabas was in the wrong. He took Mark, and sailed to Cyprus, 
his native island. And here the Scripture notices of him cease : those 
found in Gal. ii. 1, 9, 13, belong to an earlier period. From 1 Cor. 
ix. 6 we infer that Barnabas was a married man ; and from Gal. (I. c), 
and the circumstances of the dispute with Paul, his character seems 
not to have possessed that thoroughness of purpose and determination 
which was found in the great Apostle. As to his further labors and 
death, traditions differ. Some say that he went to Milan, and became 
first bishop of the Church there: the Clementine Homilies make him 
to have been a disciple of our Lord himself, and to have preached in 
Home and Alexandria, and converted Clement of Rome : the Clemen- 
tine Recognitions say that he preached in Rome even during the life- 
time of our Lord. There is extant an apocryphal work, probably of 
the fifth century, Acta et Passio Barnabai in Cypro, which relates his 
second missionary journey to Cyprus, and his death by martyrdom 
there; and a still later encomium of Barnabas, by a Cyprian monk 



910 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Alexander, which makes him to have been brought up with St. Paul 
under Gamaliel, and gives an account of the pretended finding of his 
body in the time of the Emperor Zeno (474—490). We have an 
Epistle in twenty-one chapters called by the name of Barnabas. Of 
this, the first four chapters and a half are extant only in a barbarous 
Latin version ; the rest in the original Greek. Its authenticity has 
been defended by some great names ; but it is very generally given up 
now, and the Epistle is believed to have been written early in the 
second century. 

In their office of laying the foundations of the Church, some of the 
Apostles used the pen as well as the tongue ; and two of them, Mat- 
thew and Johx, undertook the special function of placing on per- 
manent record those facts concerning the life and death and resurrec- 
tion of Christ, of which they were his own chosen witnesses. This 
would seem to be a distinctive part of the Apostolic office ; nor is this 
view at variance with the fact that it was undertaken also by two 
others, who were not Apostles. For it may now be received as an 
established fact, that the Gospels of Mark and Luke were written 
under the supervision of Peter and Paul. These two writers, there- 
fore, may well claim a place next to the Apostles. But, in speaking 
of them as Evangelists, we must distinguish this use of the word from 
its proper Xew Testament signification, as describing a class of teachers 
next in rank to Apostles and Prophets, the Evangelizers of the world. 
It was at a later age that the writer of a Gospel (siayyiuov), was called 
an Evangelist (ttayytuotrj), not only a matter of etymology, but the 
natural process of thought, which is thus stated by Eusebius : "Men 
do the work of Evangelists, leaving their homes to proclaim Christ, 
and deliver the written Gospels to those who were ignorant of the faith. " 
If the Gospel was a written book, and the office of the Evangelists was 
to read or distribute it, then the writers of such books were xa.r ito^v, 
The Evangelists. It is thus, accordingly, that Eusebius speaks of 
them ; and this meaning soon overshadowed the old one. Of the Gos- 
pels we shall speak presently ; and frequent occasions have occurred 
to notice points in that personal history of Mark and Luke, which we 
have now to collect into one view. 

I. Mark the Evangelist is probably the same as " Johx whose 
surname was Mark." John was the Jewish name, and 'Mark, a name 
of frequent use among the Romans, was adopted afterward, and gradu- 
ally superseded the other. The places in the New Testament enable 
us to trace the process. The John Mark of Acts xii. 12, 25, and the 
John of Acts xiii. 5, 13, becomes Mark only in Acts xv. 39, Col. iv. 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 911 

10, 2 Tim, iv. 11, Philem. 24. The change of John to Mark is 
analogous to that of Saul to Paul ; and we cannot doubt that the dis- 
use of the Jewish name in favor of the other is intentional, and has 
reference to the putting away of his former life, and his entrance upon 
a new ministry. No inconsistency arises from the accounts of his 
ministering to two Apostles. Of his desertion of Paul we have 
already spoken. 

John Mark was the son of a certain Mary, who dwelt at Jerusa- 
lem, and he was therefore probably born in that city. He was the 
cousin of Barnabas. It was to Mary's house, as to a familiar haunt, 
that Peter came after his deliverance from prison, and there found 
"many gathered together praying;" and John Mark was probably 
converted by Peter from meeting him in his mother's house, for he 
speaks of " Marcus my son." This natural link of connection be- 
tween the two passages is broken by the supposition of two Marks, 
which is on all accounts improbable. The theory that he was one of 
the seventy disciples is without any warrant. Another theory, that an 
event of the night of our Lord's betrayal, related by Mark alone, is 
one that befell himself, must not be so promptly dismissed. " There 
followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his 
naked body ; and the young men laid hold on him ; and he left the 
linen cloth, and fled from them naked." The detail of facts is re- 
markably minute, the name only is wanting. The most probable view 
is that St. Mark suppressed his own name, while telling a story which 
he had the best means of knowing. Awakened out of sleep, or just 
preparing for it, in some house in the valley of Kedron, he comes out 
to see the seizure of the betrayed Teacher, known to him and in some 
degree beloved already. He is so deeply interested in his fate that he 
follows him even in his thin linen robe. His demeanor is such that 
some of the crowd are about to arrest him; then, "fear overcoming 
shame " (Bengal), he leaves his garment in their hands and flees. We 
can only say that if the name of Mark is supplied, the narrative re- 
ceives its most probable explanation. John introduces himself in this 
unobtrusive way, and perhaps Luke likewise. Mary, the mother of 
Mark, seems to have been a person of some means and influence, and 
her house a rallying-point for Christians in those dangerous days. Her 
son, already an inquirer, would soon become more. Anxious to work 
for Christ, he went with Paul and Barnabas as their "minister" on 
their return from Jerusalem, and on their first journey ; but at Perga, 
as we have seen above, he turned back. On the second journey Paul 
would not accept him again as a companion, but Barnabas., his kins- 



912 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 



man, was more indulgent; and thus he became the cause of the memo- 
rable "sharp contention" between them. Whatever was the cause 
of Mark's vacillation, it did not separate him forever from Paul, for 
we find him by the side of that Apostle in his first imprisonment at 
Rome. In the former place a journey of Mark to Asia is contem- 
plated. Somewhat later he is with Peter at Babylon. Some consider 
Babylon to be a name here given to Rome in a mystical sense ; surely 
without reason, since the date of a letter is not the place to look for a 
figure of speech. Of the causes of this visit to Babylon there is no 
evidence. It may be conjectured that he made the journey to Asia 
Minor, and thence went on to join Peter at Babylon. Returning to 
proconsular Asia, he seems to have been with Timothy at Ephesus 
w r hen Paul wrote to him during his second imprisonment, and Paul 

was anxious for his 
company and min- 
istry at Rome. 

When we pass 
beyond Scripture, 
we find the facts 
doubtful and even 
inconsistent. If 
Papias is to be trust- 
ed, Mark never was 
a disciple of our 
Lord; which he 
probably infers 
from 1 Pet. v. 13. 
Epiphanius, on the 
other hand, willing 
to do honor to the Evangelist, adopts the tradition that he was one of 
the seventy-two disciples, who turned back from our Lord at the hard 
saying in John vi. The same had been said of St. Luke. Nothing 
can be decided on this point. The relation of Mark to Peter is of 
great importance for our view of his Gospel. Ancient writers with 
one consent make the Evangelist the interpreter (Ipfirjvfvtr^) of the 
Apostle Peter. Some explain this word to mean that the office of 
Mark was to translate into the Greek tongue the Aramaic discourses 
of the Apostle ; while others adopt the more probable view, that 
Mark wrote a Gospel which conformed more exactly than the others 
to Peter's preaching, and thus " interpreted " it to the Church at 
large. The report that Mark was the companion of Peter at Romt 




AXCIEXT TABLES. 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 913 

is no doubt of great antiquity. Clement of Alexandria is quoted by 
Eusebius as giving it for "a tradition which he had received of the 
elders from the first." But the force of this is invalidated by the 
suspicion that it rests on a misunderstanding of 1 Pet. v. 13, Babylon 
being wrongly taken for a typical name of Rome. Another tradition 
is, that Mark, sent on a mission to Egypt by Peter, founded the 
Church of Alexandria, and having preached in various places then 
returned to Alexandria, of which Church he was bishop, and there 
suffered a martyr's death. But none of these later details rest on 
sound authority. 

II. The name Luke (Aovxdi) is an abbreviated form of Lucanus or 
of Lucilius. It is not to be confounded with Lucius, which belongs 
to a different person. The name of Luke occurs three times in the 
New Testament, and doubtless in all three the third Evangelist is the 
person spoken of. To the Colossians he is described as " the beloved 
physician, " probably because he had been known to them in that 
faculty. Timothy needs no additionnal mark for identification ; to 
him the words are, " only Luke is with me." To Philemon, Luke 
sends his salutation in common with other " fellow-laborers " of St. 
Paul. As there is every reason to believe that the Luke of these 
passages is the author of the Acts of the Apostles, as well as of the 
Gospel which bears his name, it is natural to seek in the former book 
for some traces of that connection with St. Paul which these passages 
assume to exist ; and although the name of St. Luke does not occur 
in the Acts, we have seen ample reason to believe that under the pro- 
noun " we," several references to the Evangelist are to be added to 
the three places just quoted. 

Combining the traditional element with the Scriptural, the uncertain 
with the certain, we are able to trace the following dim outline of 
the Evangelist's life. He was born at Antioch in Syria; in what 
condition of life is uncertain. That he was taught the science of 
medicine does not prove that he was of higher birth than the rest of 
the disciples ; medicine in its earlier and ruder state was sometimes 
practised even by a slave. The well-known tradition that Luke was 
also a painter, and of no mean skill, rests on the authority of Niceph- 
orus, and of other late writers ; but none of them are of historical 
authority, and the Acts and Epistles are wholly silent upon a point 
so likely to be mentioned. He was not born a Jew, for he is not 
reckoned among them " of the circumcision " by St. Paul. If this be 
not thought conclusive, nothing can be argued from the Greek idioms 
in his style, for he might be a Hellenist Jew : nor from the Gentile 
58 



914 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

tendency of his Gospel, for this it would share with the inspired 
writing of St. Paul, a Pharisee brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. 
The date of his conversion is uncertain. He was not indeed "an 
eve-witness and minister of the word from the besrinnincr " or he 
would have rested his claim as an Evangelist upon that ground. 
Still he may have been converted by the Lord himself, some time 
before His departure ; and the statement of Epiphanius, and others, 
that he was one of the Seveuty disciples, has nothing very improba- 
ble in it; while that which Theophylact adopts on Luke xxiv. , 
that he was one of the two who journeyed to Em ma us with the risen 
Redeemer, has found modern defenders. Tertullian assumes that the 
con vers Luke is to be ascribed to Paul ; and the balance of pro- 

bability is on this side. 

The first ray of historical light falls on the Evangelist when he 
joins St. Paul at Troas. and shares his journey into Macedonia. The 
sudden transition to the iirsr person plural in Acts xvi. 9. is most 
naturally explained, after all the objections that have been urged, bv 
supposing that Luke, the writer of the Acts, formed one of St. Paul's 
company from this point. His conversion had taken place before, 
since he silently assumes his place among the great Apostle's follow 
without any hint that this was his first admission to the knowledge 
and ministry of Christ. He may have found his way to Troas to 
preach the Gospel, sent possibly by St. Paul himself. As far as 
Philippi, the Evangelist journeyed with the Apostle. The resump- 
tion of the third person on Paul's departure from that place would 
show that L:.ke was now left behind. During the rest of St. Pai 
- :>nd missionary journey we hear of Luke no more. But on the 
third journey the same indication reminds us that Luke is again of 
the company, having joined it apparently at Philippi. where he had 
been left. With the Apostle he passed through Miletus. Tyre and 
Carsarea to Jerusalem. Between the two vis Paul to Philippi 

seven years had elapsed (a. d. 51 to a. d. 58 . which the Evangelist 
may have spent in Philippi and its neighborhood, preaching the 
Gospel. 

There remains one passage which, if it refers to St. Luke, must 
belong to this period. (i AVe have sent with him" .". •:.. Titos "the 
brother whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the church 
The subscription of the Epistle sets out that it was u written from 
Philippi, a citv of Macedonia, by Titus and Luca*. } * and it is an old 
opinion that Luke was the companion of T:tu-. although he is not 
named in the body of the Epistle. If this be so, we are to suppose 




< 
o 

H 

Q 

o 

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1-5 



915 



916 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

that during the "three months " of Paul's sojourn at Philippi Luke 
was sent from that place to Corinth on this errand ; and the words 
" whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the churches," enable 
us to form an estimate of his activity during the interval in which he 
has not been otherwise mentioned. It is needless to add that the 
praise lay in the activity with which he preached the Gospel ; and 
not as Jerome understands the passage, in his being the author of a 
written Gospel. The narrative warrants the inference, that Luke 
was with Paul during his two years' imprisonment at Caesarea; and 
this is the most probable time for the composition of his Gospel. 

He again appears in the company of Paul in the memorable voy- 
age to Rome. He remained at his side during his imprisonment; 
and, assuming that the second Epistle to Timothy was written during 
the second imprisonment, the testimony of that Epistle (iv. 11) shows 
that he continued faithful to the Apostle to the end of his afflictions. 

After the death of St. Paul, the acts of his faithful companion are 
hopelessly obscure to us. It is as perhaps the Evangelist wished it 
to be : we only know him while he stands by the side of his beloved 
Paul : when the master departs, the history of the follower becomes 
confusion and fable. As to the age and death of the Evangelist, 
there is the utmost uncertainty. It seems probable that he died in 
advanced life ; but whether he suffered martyrdom or died a natural 
death ; whether Bithynia or Achaia, or some other country, witnessed 
his end, it is impossible to determine amid contradictory voices. 
That he died a martyr, between A. D. 75 and A. d. 100, would seem 
to have the balance of suffrages in its favor. It is enough for us, so 
far as regards the Gospel of St. Luke, to know that the writer was 
the tried and constant friend of the Apostle Paul, who shared his 
labors, and was not driven from his side by danger. 

Next in order to the Apostles, in the sacred history, stand those Seven 
Men of Good Report who are commonly called Deacons ; and this 
class derives special celebrity from the martyrdom of Stephen, and 
the evangelizing labors of Philip. After what has been said of 
these two in the Apostolic history, it only remains to add some further 
notices of the latter. He was, like the rest of his colleagues, in all 
probability a Hellenist. His place in the confidence of the Church is 
shown by his standing in the list of the Seven next to Stephen ; and 
we should expect the man who was thus worthy of being Stephen's 
companion and fellow-worker to go on with the work which he left 
unfinished, and to break through the barriers of national Judaism. 
Accordingly, foremost among those whom the persecution that ensued 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 917 

on the death of the first Deacon drove from Jerusalem, we find the 
second carrying the Gospel to the outcasts of Samaria and the prose- 
lyte of Ethiopia ; and thus Philip became the precursor of St. Paul 
in his work, as Stephen had been in his teaching. It falls to his lot, 
rather than to that of an Apostle, to take the first step in the victory 
over Jewish prejudice, and in the expansion of the Church according to 
its Lord's command. For this we may perhaps find a deeper reason 
than the mere fact that the Apostles had not yet left Jerusalem. As the 
Samaritans had already shown themselves, on our Lord's first visit, 
more alive to spiritual views of the Messiah than the Jews, so would a 
Hellenist probably be better prepared than a Jew to satisfy their 
hopes. From Azotus, where he re-appeared after his miraculous 
separation from the Ethiopian eunuch, he made his way to Csesarea, 
preaching in all the cities he passed through ; and we may be per- 
mitted to conjecture that his ministry at Csesarea was one of the 
causes that awakened the holy curiosity of Cornelius. 

Whether the Seven to whom Philip belonged are rightly or not 
identified with the order of Deacons, these labors of his go far beyond 
what are described as their special functions, and entitle him, before 
any other who was not an Apostle, to the designation under which he 
re-appears in the Acts, as Philip the Evangelist, though still de- 
scribed as " one of the Seven." He is still residing at Csesarea, which 
he had doubtless made the centre of his labors as an Evangelist in 
preaching the Gospel ; and his four virgin daughters possess the gift 
of prophecy. He receives Paul and his company on their way to 
Jerusalem ; and he is visited by prophets and elders from that city. 
At such a place as Csesarea, the work of such a man must have helped 
to bridge over the ever-widening gap which threatened to separate 
the Jewish and Gentile Churches. One who had preached Christ to 
the hated Samaritan, the swarthy African, the despised Philistine, the 
men of all nations who passed through the seaport of Palestine, was a 
fit host to welcome the arrival of the Apostle of the Gentiles. The 
house in which he and his daughters had lived was pointed out to 
travellers in the time of Jerome. He is said to have died Bishop of 
Tralles, in Lydia. In other traditions he is more or less confounded 
with Philip the Apostle. 

The remaining Deacons are not again mentioned in the New Testa- 
ment. Prochorus is said by tradition to have been consecrated by 
St. Peter Bishop of Nicomedia in Bithynia: Nicanor is placed 
among the seventy or seventy-two Disciples (a mere congeries of 
New Testament names) by the pseudo-Hippolytus, who adds that he 



918 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

died at the time of the martyrdom of Stephen : Timon is also made 
one of the seventy-two and Bishop of Bostra, where he suffered mar- 
tyrdom by fire : and Parmexas is said to have been martyred at 
Philippi in the reign of Trajan. 

The last of the Seven, Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, has ob- 
tained a greater but more questionable celebrity; but there is no 
reason, except the similarity of name, for identifying Nicolas with the 
sect of Nicolaitans mentioned in Rev. ii. 6, 14, 15. It would seem 
from these passages that the Nicolaitans held that it was lawful " to 
eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication," in opposition 
to the decree of the Church recorded in Acts xv. 20, 29. The Nico- 
laitans themselves, at least as early as the time of Irenaeus, claimed 
the Deacon as their founder. Epiphanius, an inaccurate writer, re- 
lates some details of the life of Nicolas the Deacon, and describes him 
as gradually sinking into the grossest impurity, and becoming the 
originator of the Nicolaitans and other immoral sects. The same 
account is believed, at least to some extent, by Jerome and other 
writers in the fourth century ; but it is irreconcilable with the charac- 
ter of Nicolas given by Clement of Alexandria, an earlier and more 
discriminating w r riter than Epiphanius. He states that Nicolas led a 
chaste life and brought up his children in purity ; that on a certain 
occasion, having been sharply reproved by the Apostles as a jealous 
husband, he repelled the charge by offering to allow his wife to be- 
come the wife of any other person ; and that he was in the habit of 
repeating a saying which is ascribed to the Apostle Matthias also, — 
that it is our duty to fight against the flesh and to abuse it. His 
words were perversely interpreted by the Nicolaitans as authority for 
their immoral practices. Theodoret, in his account of the sect, re- 
peats the foregoing statement of Clement; and charges the Nicolaitans 
with false dealing in borrowing the name of the Deacon. 

Of the other fellow- workers of the Apostles it is needless to collect 
the Scriptural notices and the later traditions, which have their 
proper place in a Dictionai~y of the Bible. But the prominence of 
Timothy and Titus among the companions of St. Paul, as well as the 
peculiar nature of the work committed to them, seems to call for a 
summary notice of their lives. 

Titus claims the precedence in the order of the narrative, as also 
no doubt in age. He is not mentioned in the Acts, and our materials 
for his biography must be drawn entirely from the notices of him in 
the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the Epistle to the Galatians, and 
the Epidle to Titus himself, combined with the Second Epistle to IHtro- 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 919 

thy. Taking the passages in the Epistles in the chronological order 
of the events referred to, we turn first to Gal. ii. 1, 3. We conceive 
the journey mentioned here to be identical with that recorded in Acts 
xv., in which Paul and Barnabas went from Antioch to Jerusalem to 
the conference which was to decide the question of the necessity of cir- 
cumcision to the Gentiles. Here we see Titus in close association 
with Paul and Barnabas at Antioch. He goes with them to Jerusa- 
lem. He is in fact one of the t&i $ axxot of Acts xv. 2, who were 
deputed to accompany them from Antioch. His circumcision was 
either not insisted on at Jerusalem, or, if demanded, was firmly re- 
sisted. He is very emphatically spoKen of as a Gentile, by which is 
most probably meant that both his parents were Gentiles. Here is a 
double contrast with Timothy, who was circumcised by St. Paul's own 
directions, and one of whose parents was Jewish. Titus would seem, 
on the occasion of the council, to have been specially a representative 
of the Church of the uncircumcision. 

It is to our purpose to remark that, in the passage cited above, 
Titus is so mentioned as apparently to imply that he had become per- 
sonally known to the Galatian Christians. This again, we combine 
with two other circumstances, namely, that the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians and the Second Epistle to the Corinthians were probably written 
within a few months of each other, and both during the same journey. 
From the latter of these two Epistles we obtain fuller notices of Titus 
in connection with St. Paul. 

After leaving Galatia, and spending a long time at Ephesus, the 
Apostle proceeded to Macedonia by way of Troas. Here he expected 
to meet Titus, who had been sent on a mission to Corinth. In this 
hope he was disappointed, but in Macedonia Titus joined him. Here 
we begin to see not only the above-mentioned fact of the mission of 
this disciple to Corinth, and the strong personal affection which sub- 
sisted between him and St. Paul, but also some part of the purport 
of the mission itself, which has been fully explained in the history. 
But, if we proceed further, we discern another part of the mission with 
which he was entrusted. This had reference to the collection, at that 
time in progress, for the poor Christians of Judaea. Thus we are pre- 
pared for what the Apostle now proceeds to do after his encouraging 
conversations with Titus regarding the Corinthian Church. He sends 
him back from Macedonia to Corinth, in company with two other 
trustworthy Christians, Trophimus and Tychicus (or, as some think, 
Luke), bearing the Second Epistle, and with an earnest request that 
he would see to the completion of the collection, which Iiq had zea- 
lously promoted on his late visit. 



920 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

All that has preceded is drawn from direct statements in the Epis- 
tles; but by indirect though fair inference we can arrive at something 
further, which gives coherence to the rest, with additional elucidations 
of the close connection of Titus with St. Paul and the Corinthian 
Church. It has generally been considered doubtful who the brethren 
were that took the First Epistle to Corinth ; but there can be little 
doubt that the messengers who took that first letter were Titus and 
his companion, whoever that might be, who is mentioned with him in 
the second letter. 

A considerable interval now elapses before we come upon the next 
notices of this disciple. St. Paul's first imprisonment is concluded, 
and his last trial is impending. In the interval between the two, he 
and Titus were together in Crete. We see Titus remaining in the 
island when St. Paul left it, and receiving there a letter written to him 
by the Apostle. From this letter we gather the following biographical 
details : In the first place we learn that he was originally converted 
through St. Paul's instrumentality. Next we learn the various par- 
ticulars of the responsible duties which he had to discharge in Crete. 
He is to complete what St. Paul had been obliged to leave unfinished, 
and he is to organize the Church throughout the island by appointing 
presbyters in every city. Instructions are given as to the suitable 
character of such presbyters, and we learn further that we have here 
the repetition of instructions previously furnished by word of mouth. 
ISText he is to control and bridle the restless and mischievous Judaizers, 
and he is to be peremptory in so doing. Injunctions in the same spirit 
are reiterated. He is to urge the duties of a decorous and Christian 
life upon the women, some of whom possibly had something of an 
official character. He is to be watchful over his own conduct; he is 
to impress upon the slaves the peculiar duties of their position ; he is 
to check all social and political turbulence, and also all wild theolo- 
gical speculations, and to exercise discipline on the heretical. When 
we consider all these particulars of his duties, we see not only the 
confidence reposed in him by the Apostle, but the need there was of 
determination and strength of purpose, and therefore the probability 
that this was his character ; and all this is enhanced if we bear in mind 
his isolated and unsupported position in Crete, and the lawless and 
immoral character of the Cretans themselves, as testified by their own 
writers. 

The notices which remain are more strictly personal. Titus is to 
look for the arrival in Crete of Artemas and Tychicus, and then he is 
to hasten .to join St. Paul at Nicopolis, where the Apostle is proposing 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 



921 



to pass the winter. Zenas and Apollos are in Crete, or expected 
there ; for Titus is to send them on their journey and supply them 
with whatever they need for it. It is observable that Titus and 
Apollos are brought into juxtaposition here, as they were before in the 
discussion of the mission from Ephesus to Corinth. 

We may observe here that there would be great difficulty in insert- 
ing the visits to Crete and Nicopolis in any of the journeys recorded 
in the Acts, to say nothing of the other objections to giving the 
Epistle any date anterior to the voyage to Rome. On the other hand* 
there is no difficulty in arranging these circumstances, if we suppose 
St. Paul to have travelled and written after being liberated from 
Rome, while thus we gain the further advantage of an explanation of 
what Paley has well called the affinity of this Epistle and the first to 
Timothy. Whether Titus did join the Apostle at Nicopolis we can- 
not tell. But we naturally connect 
the mention of this place with what 
St. Paul wrote at no great interval 
of time afterward, in the last of the 
Pastoral Epistles ; for Dalmatia lay 
to the north of Nicopolis, at no great 
distance from it. From the form of 
the whole sentence, it seems probable 
that this disciple had been with St. 
Paul in Rome during his final im- 
prisonment: but this cannot be as- 
serted confidently. The touching 
words of the Apostle in this pas- 
sage might seem to imply some reproach, and we might draw from 
them the conclusion that Titus became a second Denias : but on the 
whole this seems a harsh and unnecessary judgment. 

Whatever else remains is legendary, though it may contain elements 
of truth. Titus is connected by tradition with Dalmatia, and he is 
said to have been an object of much reverence in that region. This, 
however, may simply be a result of the passage quoted immediately 
above: and it is observable that of all the churches in modern Dal- 
matia not one is dedicated to him. The traditional connection of 
Titus with Crete is much more specific and constant, though here again 
we cannot be certain of the facts. He is said to have been permanent 
bishop in the island, and to have died there at an advanced age. The 
modern capital, Candia, appears to claim the honor of being his burial- 
£lace. In the apocryphal fragment, Be Vita et Actis Titi, by the 




TIMOTHY'S INSTRUCTORS. 



922 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 

lawyer Zenas, Titus is called Bishop of Gortyna : and on the old site 
of Gortyna is a ruined church, of ancient and solid masonry, which 
bears the name of St. Titus, and w r here service is occasionally cele- 
brated by priests from the neighboring hamlet of Metropolis. The 
cathedral of 31egalo-Castron, in the north of the island, is also dedi- 
cated to this saint. Lastly, the name of Titus was the watch-word of 
the Cretans when they were invaded by the Venetians : and the Vene- 
tians themselves, after their conquest of the island, adopted him to 
some of the honors of a patron saint. 

Timotheus, or, as his name is expressed in the familiar English 
abbreviation, Timothy, was born at Lystra, in Lycaonia, the son of 
one of those mixed marriages between a Gentile father and a Jewish 
mother, which, though condemned by stricter Jewish opinion, and 
placing their offspring on all but the lowest step in the Jewish scale 
of precedence, were yet not uncommon in the later periods of Jewish 
history. The children of such marriages were known as JIamzerim 
(bastards), and stood just above the Nethinim. But the reverence of 
the Jews for their religion came in to redeem the disgrace : a bastard 
who was a wise student of the Law was, in theory, above an ignorant 
high-priest: and so the knowledge of the Scriptures, "which Timothy 
owed to the care of his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, may 
have helped to overcome the natural prejudice of his bigoted Jewish 
neighbors. Of the fruit of that pious education; — how it prepared 
Timothy to receive, while still a boy, the Gospel brought by Paul to 
his native city ; and how, after gaining honor among the brethren at 
Lystra, Iconium, and even Antioch, he was chosen by Paul, on his 
second visit to Lycaonia, to share that fellowship of labor and of love 
which only ceased with the Apostle's death ; — of his circumcision and 
ordination ; — and of his part in Paul's work, till he was called to 
comfort his last hours and to witness his martyrdom at Rome ; — we 
have spoken in former chapters. Their companionship begins with 
the second missionary journey, when Timothy may be regarded as 
supplying the void caused by the difference with Barnabas. If Bar- 
nabas had been to Paul as the brother and friend of early days, he 
had now found one whom he could claim as his own true son by a 
spiritual parentage. That Timothy had now (a. d. 49 or 53) only 
just reached manhood, is evident from St. Paul's addressing him, in 
the First Epistle, as still young. Following Paul through Asia Minor 
into Europe, he came to Philippi ; and though his tender youth was 
spared the sufferings of Paul and Silas, the Apostle calls the Philip- 
pians to witness how zealously he shared their work : "Ye know the 



SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY. 923 

proof of him, that as a son with his father, he hath served with me 
in the Gospel." His name does not appear in the account of St. Paul's 
work at Thessalonica, and it is possible that he remained some time at 
Philippi, and then acted as the messenger by whom the members of 
that Church sent what they were able to give for the Apostle's wants. 
He appears, however, at Bercea, and remains there when Paul and 
Silas are obliged to leave, going on afterward to join his master at 
Athens. From Athens he is sent back to Thessalonica, as having 
special gifts for comforting and teaching. He returns from Thessa- 
lonica, not to Athens, but to Corinth, and his name appears united 
with St. Paul's in the opening words of both the letters written from 
that city to the Thessalonians. Here also he was apparently active as 
an Evangelist, and on him, probably, with some exceptions, devolved 
the duty of baptizing the new converts. 

Of the next five years of his life we have no record, and we can 
infer nothing beyond a continuance of his active service as St. Paul's 
companion. When we next meet with him, it is as being sent on in 
advance, when the Apostle was contemplating the long journey which 
was to include Macedonia, Achaia, Jerusalem and Rome. He was 
sent to "bring; the churches into remembrance of the wavs" of the 
Apostle. We trace in the words of the " father " an anxious desire 
to guard the son from the perils which, to his eager but sensitive tem- 
perament, would be most trying. His route would take him through 
the churches which he had been instrumental in founding, and this 
would give him scope for exercising the gifts which were afterward to 
be displayed in a still more responsible office. It is probable, from 
the passages already referred to, that, after accomplishing the special 
work assigned to him, he returned by the same route and met St. 
Paul according to a previous arrangement, and was thus with him 
when the Second Epistle was written to the Church of Corinth. He 
returns with the Apostle to that city, and joins in messages of greeting 
to the disciples whom he had known personally at Corinth, and who 
had since found their way to Rome. He forms one of the company 
of friends who go with St. Paul to Philippi and then sail by them- 
selves, waiting for his arrival by a different ship. Whether he con- 
tinued his journey to Jerusalem, and what became of him during St. 
Paul's two years' imprisonment and voyage, are points on which we 
must remain uncertain. He must have joined Paul, however, appa- 
rently soon after his arrival in Rome, and was with him when the 
Epistles to the Philippians, to the Colossians, and to Philemon were 
written. 



924 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

From the two Epistles addressed to him, we are able to put together 
a few notices as to his later life. It follows, from 1 Tim. i. 3, that he 
and his master, after the release of the latter from his imprisonment, 
revisited the proconsular Asia, that the Apostle then continued his 
journey to Macedonia, while the disciple remained at Ephesus. We 
have already had occasion to describe his work there as portrayed in 
St. Paul's First Epistle to him. In the Second Epistle the Apostle's 
deep personal feeling utters itself yet more fully. The friendship of 
fifteen years was drawing to a close, and all memories connected with 
it throng upon the mind of the old man, now ready to be offered, the 
blameless youth, the holy household, the solemn ordination, the tears 
at parting. The last recorded words of the Apostle express the earnest 
hope, repeated yet more earnestly, that he might see him once again. 
Timotheus is to come before winter, to bring with him the cloak for 
which in that winter there would be need. Of the spirit in which this 
urgent invitation was sent we have already spoken. We may hazard 
the conjecture that Timothy reached Paul in time, and that the last 
hours of the teacher were soothed by the presence of the disciple whom 
he loved so truly. He continues, according to the old traditions, to 
act as bishop of Ephesus, and dies a martyr's death under Domitian 
or Nerva. The great Festival of Artemis led him to protest against 
the licence and frenzy which accompanied it. The mob were roused 
to fury, and put him to death with clubs. 



PAET IV. 

Secular History of the Jews. 

FROM THE DEATH OF HEROD THE GREAT TO THE 

PRESENT DAY. 



BOOK X. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS, FROM THE DEATH OF HEROD TO 

THE PRESENT DAY — THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY. 

[B. C. 4.— A. D. 1870.] 




CHAPTER XLIV. 

« 

SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS, FROM THE DEATH OF HEROD TO THE DE- 
STRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 

[b. c. 4-a. d. 70.] 

E return now to the history of the family of Herod the Great, 
which we laid aside in order to discuss the events of the life 
of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the 
ministry of His Apostles in spreading the Gospel throughout 
the then known world. 
The family of Herod is shown in the genealogical table on the next 
page. Of his ten wives, we need only notice the offspring of the first 
five. (1.) He married Doris before his accession to the throne; and 
her only son Antipater was, as we have seen, the last victim of his 
father's dying rage. (2.) Aristobulus, his eldest son by Mariamne, 
the granddaughter of Hyrcanus, was the parent of a large family, 
and from him were descended the two Agrippas, the first of whom 
was the " King Herod" who slew James and imprisoned Peter; the 
second, the "King Agrippa" before whom Paul pleaded. (3.) 
After the judicial murder of Mariamne, Herod married another 
Mariamne, daughter of the high-priest, Simon : her son was Herod 

925 



926 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Philip, whose marriage with his niece Herodias, daughter of Aris- 
tobulus, followed by her divorce of him to marry his half-brother, 
Herod Antipas, led to the martyrdom of John the Baptist. He is 
often confounded with his half-brother Philip, the tetrarch of 
Ituraea. (4.) His next wife, Malthace, a Samaritan, was the mother 
of Herod Antipas and Archelaus, of whom we have presently to 
speak. (5.) By Cleopatra he had two sons, the younger of whom 
was Philip, the tetrarch of Ituraea and the adjacent districts, with 
Trachonitis. (6-10.) His other wives and their children are of no 
consequence in the history. These complicated relations will be 
made clearer by the following conspectus of the chief personages with 
whom the history is concerned, for the four generations of the family : 

A. Herod the Great. 

Wives. Sons. 

1. Doris 1. Antipater "| Executed by their father in 

2. Mariamne, grandda. 2. Aristobulus > his life-time. 

of Hyrcanus II. 3. Alexander J 

3. Mariamne, d. of Simon 4. Herod Philip I Lived as a private person. 

m. Herodias. 

4. Malthace, a Samaritan 5. Herod Antipas Tetrarch of Galilee. 

6. Archelaus Ethnarch of Judsea. 

5. Cleopatra 7. Herod Philip II Tetrarch of Northern Pe- 

rn. Salome, d. of Phil- raea, etc. 
ip I. and Herodias. 

B. Children of Aristobulus. 

1. Herod Agrippa I. ... King of Judaea. 

2. Herodias, m. — 

(1) Herod Philip I. 

(2) Herod Antipas. 

C. Children of Herod Agrippa I. 

1. Herod Agrippa II... Tetrarch of N. Peraea, etc. 

(titular king). 

2. Berenice Named in Acts xxv. 23. 

3. DRUsiLLA.m. to Felix Named in Acts xxiv. 24. 

During his last illness, Herod made a will in favor of the sons of 
Malthace, who had been educated at Rome, and had been at first 
excluded from the inheritance through the accusations of Antipater. 
It was this unexpected arrangement which led to the retreat of Joseph 
to Galilee on his return with Mary and Jesus from Egypt. The 
elder of them, Herod Antipas, was first named by Herod his suc- 
cessor ; but the last change in the king's will transferred that dignity 
to Archelaus, leaving to Antipas the government of Galilee and 
Peraea (in the narrower sense), with the title of tetrarch. The north- 
ern part of the trans-Jordanic country, including Ituraea, Gaulonitis, 
and Batanaea, with Trachonitis, were made a tetrarchy for Philip, the 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 92* 

son of Cleopatra. Lastly, Herod's will left an ample provision to 
his sister Salome, whose intrigues had been so fatal to his family, and 
large legacies to Augustus and his wife Julia. Herod Philip, the 
son of the second Mariamne, was excluded from all benefit of his 
father's will, in revenge for the supposed treason of his mother ; as 
were also the descendants of the first Mariamne. 

Pending the ratification of Herod's will by Augustus, Archelaus 
succeeded to his father's power. The Jewish princes were released 
from the hippodrome, and the funeral of Herod was celebrated with 
great splendor. The funeral is thus described by Dean Milman : — 
" The lifeless remains of Herod seemed to retain his characteristic 
magnificence. The body was borne aloft on a bier, which was 
adorned with costly precious stones. The linen was of the richest 
dye ; the winding-sheet of purple. It still wore the diadem, and, 
above that, the golden crown of royalty ; the sceptre was in its hand. 
The sons and relatives of Herod attended the bier. All the military 
force followed, distributed according to their nations. First, his 
body-guard — then his foreign mercenaries, Thracians, Germans, 
Gauls — then, the rest of the army, in war array. Last came five 
hundred of his court-officers, bearing sweet spices, with which the 
Jews embalmed the dead. In this pomp the procession passed on, 
by slow stages, to the Herodiiim, a fortified palace, about twenty miles 
from Jericho." 

At the end of the seven days' mourning, during which it was 
rumored that the pious duties of the day were relieved by nights of 
revelry, Archelaus gave a funeral feast to the people, and then made 
a solemn entry into the Temple. His speech, in which he assumed a 
tone of great moderation, and promised relief from his father's tyranny, 
was received with loud applause, not unmingled with cries for the 
redress of grievances. " Some called for a diminution of the public 
burdens ; others for the release of the prisoners, with whom Herod 
had crowded the dungeons; some more specifically for the entire 
abandonment of the taxes on the sale of commodities in the markets, 
which had been levied with the utmost rigor. Archelaus listened 
with great affability, promised largely, and, having performed sacri- 
fice, retired." 

The* disaffection, which was doubtless inflamed by disappointment 
of the hopes founded on the milder character of Herod Antipas, the 
expected heir, broke out into open tumult while the two brothers 
were preparing to start for Rome, the one to seek the emperor's con- 
firmation of Herod's will, the other to urge his claims. At the Feast 



928 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of the Passover, when Jerusalem was always filled with devout Jews, 
whose zeal was inflamed by their numbers and by the exaltation of 
feeling due to the festival, a cry was raised for vengeance on behalf 
of those whom Herod had executed for pulling down the eagle. The 
multitude were only dispersed by armed force, with the slaughter of 
3000 men, and the feast was broken off. Archelaus now set out for 
Rome. In his train were Nicolas of Damascus, whose eloquence had 
so well served his father, and Salome, who was secretly prepared to 
urge the claims of Herod Antipas. 

Meanwhile the rapacity of the Roman officials grasped at what 
appeared an easy prey. Even while preparing to embark at Caesarea, 
Archelaus had met Sabinus, the procurator of Syria, on his way to 
claim the late King's treasures. His march, suspended at the en- 
treaties of Archelaus and the command of Varus, the prefect of Syria, 
was resumed as soon as the former had sailed ; and his exactions gave 
the zealots the provocation or pretext for a tumult, which was only 
put down by the interference of Varus. Sabinus, left still in com- 
mand at Jerusalem, soon provoked a new insurrection at the Feast of 
Pentecost, when the city was again filled with zealots bent on avenging 
their repulse at the Passover. They formed a regular encampment 
round the Temple, and besieged Sabinus and his legion, probably in 
the Antonia. The Romans made a sally against the Temple, burned 
the cloisters of the outer court with its defenders, broke into the sanc- 
tuary, and plundered the sacred treasures; but the Jews, furious at 
the sacrilege, still besieged Sabinus and his legion. The anarchy of 
the country was inflamed by the troops of Herod, who wandered 
about in bands, that fought and plundered as they pleased. To these 
elements of confusion was added the expectation of some great de- 
liverer, — a feeling which now reached its climax, — and at the very 
time when the true Saviour was concealed in Egypt, false Messiahs 
were assuming the diadem, and gathering troops of banditti. Mean- 
while Varus advanced to the relief of Sabinus, at the head of two 
legions, and among the auxiliaries were some Arabian bands, who 
devastated the country. The insurgents laid down their arms at his 
approach ; and Sabinus, ashamed to meet him, set off to Rome. Two 
thousand of the ringleaders were crucified, and others sent to Rome 
for trial. It had become plain that, whatever might be the decision 
of Augustus, he himself was the only master of Judaea. 

The cause at issue before him was pleaded by the eloquence of 
Nicolas and Herod Philip (the elder) on the part of Archelaus, and 
by Salome and her son Antipater on that of Antipas. During its 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 929 

progress a deputation of 500 Jews appeared at the emperor's tribunal, 
praying for the suppression of royalty and the restoration of their 
liberties ; and the statement that they were supported by no less than 
8000 of their countrymen at Rome indicates the number and influence 
of the Jews settled in the capital. At length, Augustus confirmed the 
will of Herod in all essential points. Archelaus was established in 
the government of Judaea, with Idumaea and Samaria, forming about 
half the kingdom of Herod, and bringing in a revenue of 600 talents. 
He was to rule under the title of fflhnarch, with the promise of that 
of King if he proved worthy of it. Of the chief cities in his territory, 
he retained Jerusalem, Sebaste, Csesarea, and Joppa; while Gaza, 
Gadara, and Hippo were made Roman towns under the prefect of 
Syria ; and Salome received Jamnia, Azotus, Phasaelis, and a palace 
in Ascalon. Herod Antipas was confirmed in the tetrarchy of Gali- 
lee and Peraea, with a revenue of 200 talents, and Philip in that of 
Auranitis and Trachonitis. 

We have seen that the first news of the succession of Archelaus led 
the parents of our Lord to turn aside on their way back from Egypt, 
and to place their precious charge under the milder government of 
Herod Antipas. The fear of Joseph may be taken as an expression 
of the popular distrust of Archelaus, which was amply justified by the 
continued tyranny and disorder of his nine years' reign. At first, he 
showed a desire to conciliate the Jews by displacing Joazar, whom 
Herod had made high-priest after the affair of the eagle, in favor of 
his brother Eleazar. But the adherents of the Law were alienated by 
the marriage of Archelaus to Glaphyra, his brother Alexander's 
widow, for whom he divorced his wife Mariamne ; and at length his 
tyranny provoked his subjects to appeal to Augustus. Archelaus was 
summoned suddenly to Rome, and banished to Vienna (Vienne) in 
Gaul (a. d. 7). This sentence put a final end to the Jewish mon- 
archy ; for the restoration of a nominal kingdom for a few years under 
Herod Agrippa I. (a. d. 41-44) can only be viewed as an episode in 
the Roman domination. " The sceptre had departed from Juclah." 

Before pursuing the history of Judaea as a Roman province, it will 
be convenient to follow the course of the two other sons of Herod, 
who reigned in Palestine according to his will. Herod Antipas, 
the brother of Archelaus, was confirmed by Augustus, as we have 
seen, in the tetrarchy of Galilee and Peraea, which had been assigned 
to him by his father's will, and hence he is mentioned in the Gospels 
by the style of Herod the Tetrarch. His whole importance is 
derived from his two appearances in the Gospel history, as first the 
59 



930 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

hearer and then the murderer of John the Baptist, and as taking part 
with Pilate in the condemnation of our Lord. The first of these 
crimes was due to the fatal influence of Herodias, which at last 
brought him to his ruin. He had married a daughter of Aretas, king 
of Arabia Petrsea (the same from whose governor at Damascus St. 
Paul was afterward in danger). While still living with her, he 
formed a connection of the most disgraceful character in the eye of the 
Jewish law. The notorious Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, the 
son of Mariamne and Herod the Great, and consequently sister of 
Herod Agrippa I., was married to Herod Philip, who was her step- 
uncle, being the son of Herod and the second Marianine ; and she now 
deserted Philip to marry Herod Antipas, who stood to her in the same 
relation. Besides that her husband and his wife were both alive, 
Antipas, as the half-brother of Philip, was already connected with 
Herodias by an affinity so close, that there was only one case contem- 
plated in the law of Moses where it could be set aside, namely, when 
the married brother had died childless. Xow Herodias had already 
one child, Salome, by Philip. Well therefore may she be charged by 
Josephus with the intention of confounding her country's institutions, 
and well may John the Baptist have remonstrated against the 
enormity of such a connection with the tetrarch, whose conscience 
would certainly seem to have been less hardened than hers ; for he 
" feared " his reprover, whose preaching he had " heard gladly," and 
though these impressions did not avail to keep him from adding mur- 
der to adultery, he "was sorry" to commit the crime. Aretas made 
war to avenge his daughter ; and we have the express testimony of 
Josephus, that the defeat of Herod, with the loss of nearly all his 
army, was viewed by the Jews as a judgment for John's murder. 

Free from his father's tyrannical temper, Herod Antipas aspired to 
be the patron and protector of the Jews, and he ventured on an open 
quarrel with the Roman procurator, probably concerning those " Gali- 
leans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices." Herod 
courted favor with the strict Jews by his visit to Jerusalem at the 
Passover; and the Roman procurator thought it prudent to avail 
himself of such an opportunity for a reconciliation by sending Jesus 
before Herod, who, as tetrarch, had jurisdiction over a Galilean, and 
as the head of the Herodian house, might gratify his hatred of " the 
king of the Jews." Such was the conjunction of political interests 
and passions, by which " both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the 
Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together," to fulfil 
the divine counsels as foretold by David. 



/ 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 931 

These two chief passages of his life reveal the character of this 
weak, sensual, and superstitious prince, whose cunning was stamped 
by the Saviour with the epithet " that fox : " who would have been 
pleased to have kept both John and Jesus as prophets at his court, 
but was led by wanton weakness to sacrifice the one, and through the 
terror engendered by remorse, " would have killed " the other, over 
w T kom he at last indulged his spite, when he saw him safe as a prisoner 
to Pilate. What is left untold of his character and deeds is summed 
up in the pregnant phrase, which St. Luke adds to the record of his 
adultery with Herodias, " all the wickedness which Herod had done." 

At length the favors heaped by the emperor Caligula (who suc- 
ceeded Tiberius in A. D. 37) upon his friend and comrade, Herod 
Agrippa, excited the jealous ambition of Herod Antipas. At the 
instigation of Herodias, he sailed with her to Rome, nominally to 
petition for the same royal title which had been conferred upon his 
nephew, but really to intrigue against him. But Agrippa, the bosom 
friend of Caligula, met the plot by a charge of treason against his 
uncle; and Antipas was banished to Lugdunum in Gaul (a. d. 39). 
It deserves to be recorded of Herodias, that she preferred sharing the 
exile of Antipas, till death ended his reverses, to remaining with her 
brother Agrippa, and partaking of his elevation. • 

The city of Tiberias, which Antipas founded and named in honor 
of the emperor, was the most conspicuous monument of his long reign ; 
but, like the rest of the Herodian family, he showed his passion for 
building cities in several places, restoring Sepphoris, near Tabor, which 
had been destroyed in the wars after the death of Herod the Great, 
and Betharamptha (Beth-haran) in Peraea, which he named Julias, 
" from the wife of the emperor." 

Herod Philip II. was the son of Herod the Great and Cleopatra. 
Like his half-brothers Antipas and Archelaus, he was brought up at 
home, and on the death of his father advocated the claims of Arche- 
laus before Augustus. He received as his own government " Batanaaa, 
Trachonitis, Auranitis (Gaulonitis), and some parts about Jamnia," 
with the title of tetrarch. His rule was distinguished by justice and 
moderation, and he appears to have devoted himself entirely to the 
duties of his office without sharing in the intrigues which disgraced 
his family. He built a new city on the site of Paneas, near the sources 
of the Jordan, which he called Csesarea, and raised Bethsaida (in lower 
Gaulonitis) to the rank of a city under the title of Julias, and died 
there A. D. 34. He married Salome, the daughter of Philip I. and 
Herodias, but, as he left no children, his dominions were added at his 
death to the Roman province of Syria. 



932 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The city of Caesarea Philippi, chosen by Philip the tetrarch as the 
site of his villas and palaces, beside his father's temple to Augustus, 
is distinguished not only by the unrivalled beauty of its site, but also 
by its sacred associations. "As it is the northernmost frontier of 
Palestine, so it is the northernmost limit of the journeys of our Lord. 
.... It must at least have been in its neighborhood that the confes- 
sion of Peter was made ; the rock on which the temple of Augustus 
stood, and from which the streams of the Jordan issue, may possibly 
have suggested the words which now run round the dome of St. 
Peter's." 

Judaea, including Samaria, was reduced, on the banishment of 
Archelaus, to an ordinary Roman province under a procurator subor- 
dinate to the prefect of Syria. He resided, not at Jerusalem, but at 
Caesarea on the coast. Sabinus had already held the office during the 
absence of Archelaus, on whose deposition Coponius accompanied 
Quirinus to the country. Quirinus (the Cyrenius of the N. T.) — now 
for the second time prefect of Syria — was charged with the unpopular 
measure of the enrolment or assessment of the inhabitants of Judaea. 
Notwithstanding the riots which took place elsewhere, at Jerusalem 
the enrolment was allowed to proceed without resistance, owing to the 
prudence of Joazar, again high-priest for a short time. One of the 
first acts of the new governor had been to take formal possession of 
the state vestments of the high-priest, worn on the three Festivals and 
on the Day of Atonement. Since the building of the Baris by the 
Maccabees these robes had always been kept there, a custom continued 
since its reconstruction by Herod. But henceforward they were to be 
put up after use in an underground stone chamber, under the seal of 
the priests, and in charge of the captain of the guard. Seven days 
before use they were brought out, to be consigned again to the chamber 
after the ceremony was over. 

Two incidents at once most opposite in their character, and in their 
significance to that age and to ourselves, occurred during the procu- 
ratorship of Coponius. First, in the year 8, the finding of Christ in 
the Temple. Annas had been made high-priest about a year before. 
The second occurrence must have been a most distressing one to the 
Jews, unless they had become inured to such things. But of this we 
cannot so exactly fix the date. It was nothing less than the pollution 
of the Temple by some Samaritans, who secretly brought human bones 
and strewed them about the cloisters during the night of the Passover. 
Up to this time the Samaritans had been admitted to the Temple; 
they were henceforth excluded. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS.. 933 

In or about A. D. 10 Coponius was succeeded by M. Ambivius, and 
he by Annius Rufus. In a. d. 14 the emperor Augustus died, and 
with Tiberius came in a new procurator, Valerius Gratus, who 
held office till 26, when he was replaced by Pontius Pilatus. During 
this period the high-priests had been numerous, but it is only neces- 
sary here to say that when Pilate arrived at his government the office 
was held by Joseph Caiaphas, who had been appointed but a few 
months before. The name of Pilate indicates that he was connected, 
by descent or adoption, with the gens of the Pontii, first conspicuous 
in Roman history in the person of C. Pontius Telesinus, the great 
Samnite general. He was the sixth Roman procurator of Judaea, and 
under him our Lord worked, suffered, and died, as we learn not only 
from the obvious Scriptural authorities, but from Tacitus, — " Christus, 
Tiberio imperitante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio 
adfectus erat." The freedom from disturbance, which marks the pre- 
ceding twenty years at Jerusalem, was probably due to the absence of 
the Roman troops, who were quartered at Csesarea, out of the way of 
the fierce fanatics of the Temple. But Pilate transferred the winter- 
quarters of the army to Jerusalem, and the very first day there was a 
collision. The offence was given by the Roman standards — the images 
of the emperor and of the eagle — which by former commanders had 
been kept out of the city. Pilate had been obliged to send them in 
by night, and there were no bounds to the rage of the people on dis- 
covering what had thus been done. They poured down in crowds to 
Caesarea, where the procurator was then residing, and besought him 
to remove the images. After five days of discussion, he gave the signal 
to some concealed soldiers to surround the petitioners and to put them 
to death unless they ceased to trouble him ; but this only strengthened 
their determination, and they declared themselves ready rather to sub- 
mit to death than forego their resistance to an idolatrous innovation. 
Pilate then yielded, and the standards were by his orders brought down 
to Csesarea. Afterwards, as if to try how far he might go, he conse- 
crated some gilt shields — not containing figures, but inscribed simply 
with the name of the deity and of the donor — and hung them in the 
palace at Jerusalem. This act again aroused the resistance of the 
Jews ; and on appeal to Tiberius they were removed. Another riot 
was caused by his appropriation of the Corban — a sacred revenue 
arising from the redemption of vows — to the cost of an aqueduct which 
he constructed for bringing water to the city. To these specimens of 
his administration, which rest on the testimony of profane authors, we 
must add the slaughter of certain Galileans, already noticed. The 



934 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

clear testimony thus borne to his sanguinary tyranny sets in a striking 
light the meanness of his attempt to conciliate the Jews, and to avoid 
the threat of a denunciation to Caesar, by the sacrifice of Jesus. 
Pilate's tyranny continued after that event, till, A. D. 37, the loud 
complaints of the Samaritans determined Vitellius, the prefect of 
Syria and father of the emperor, to send the procurator for trial to 
Rome. He arrived just after the death of Tiberius; and one of the 
praiseworthy acts which marked the beginning of Caligula's reign was 
his banishment to Vienna (Vienne) in Gaul, where a monument still 
bears the very doubtful title of the tomb of Pontius Pilate. 

After Pilate had been recalled to Home, Jerusalem was visited by 
Vitellius, the prefect of Syria, at the time of the Passover. This 
visit was connected with the war, already noticed, between Herod 
Antipas and the Arabian king Aretas. In consequence of the victory 
of the latter, Vitellius set his army in motion to attack Petra ; and it 
was on his march that he visited Jerusalem. Besides forbearing to 
insult the people by the display of his standards, Vitellius conferred 
two great benefits on the city. He remitted the duties levied on 
produce, and he allowed the Jews again to have the free custody of 
the high-priest's vestments. He removed Caiaphas from the high- 
priesthood, and gave it to Jonathan, son of Annas. He then de- 
parted, apparently leaving a Homan officer in charge of the Autonia. 
Vitellius was again at Jerusalem this year, probably in the autumn, 
with Herod the tetrarch ; while there he again changed the high- 
priest, substituting for Jonathan, Theophilus his brother. The news 
of the death of Tiberius and the accession of Caligula reached Jeru- 
salem at this time ; and it was the interruption thereby caused to the 
operations of Vitellius that emboldened Aretas to seize Damascus, a 
circumstance of great importance, as we shall see, in the chronology 
of Paul's life. Marcellus was appointed procurator by the new 
emperor. 

In a. D. 40 Vitellius was superseded by P. Petronius, who 
arrived in Palestine with an order to place in the Temple a statue of 
Caligula. This outrage was connected with events which throw an 
interesting light on the relations of the Jews, in their various branches, 
to the imperial supremacy. " Up to the reign of Caligula," says 
Dean Milman, "the Jews had enjoyed, without any serious interrup- 
tion, the universal toleration which Homan policy permitted to the 
religion of the subject states. If the religion had suffered a temporary 
proscription at Rome under Tiberius, it was as a foreign superstition, 
supposed, from the misconduct of individuals, to be dangerous to the 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 935 

public morals in the metropolis. Judaism remained undisturbed in 
the rest of the empire ; and, although the occasional insolence of the 
Roman governors in Judaea might display itself in acts offensive to 
the religious feelings of the natives, yet the wiser and more liberal, 
like Yitellius, studiously avoided all interference with that supersti- 
tion which they respected or despised. But the insane vanity of 
Caligula made him attempt to enforce from the whole empire those 
divine honors, which his predecessors consented to receive from the 
willing adulation of their subjects. Everywhere statues were raised 
and temples built in honor of the deified emperor. The Jews could 
not submit to the mandate without violating the first principle of 
their religion, nor resist it without exposing their whole nation to 
the resentment of their masters. The storm began to lower around 
them : its first violence broke upon the Jews in Alexandria, where, 
however, the collision with the ruling authorities first originated in 
the animosities of the Greek and Jewish factions which divided the 
city. This great and populous capital, besides strangers from all 
quarters, was inhabited by three distinct races, the native Egyptians, 
Jews, and Greeks. The native Egyptians were generally avoided as 
of an inferior class ; but the Jews boasted of edicts from the founder 
of the city, and from other monarchs of Egypt, which entitled them 
to equal rank and estimation with descendants of the ancient Mace- 
donian settlers. They were numerous : Philo calculates that in 
Egypt they amounted to a million of souls. They were opulent and 
among the most active traders of that great commercial metropolis. 
It is probable that they were turbulent, and not the peaceful and un- 
offending people described by their advocate Philo — at all events they 
were odious to the Greek population ." 

The prefect Valerius Flaccus, whose firm and impartial govern- 
ment had hitherto kept the peace between the contending factions, 
finding his position endangered upon the accession of Caligula, sought 
to ingratiate himself with the Alexandrian Greeks by giving them 
licence to insult the Jews. The arrival of Herod Agrippa, on his 
way to assume the principality conferred on him by Caligula, fur- 
nished a butt for their insolence; and, having vented their wanton 
humor in a mockery of his royal state, they proceeded, on his depart- 
ure, to more serious outrages. They set up statues of the emperor in 
the proseuchce or Jewish places of worship ; and the Jews, compelled 
by an edict of Flaccus to keep themselves within the two quarters of 
the city which were peopled exclusively by them, though many 
resided in the other three, lost heavily by the compulsory removal, 



936 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

and began to suffer from pestilence and famine in the crowded 
quarters in which they were almost besieged. " Those who ventured 
out into the market were robbed, insulted, maltreated, pursued with 
sticks and stones. Bloodshed soon ensued ; many were slain with 
the sword, others trampled to death ; some, even while alive, were 
dragged by their heels through the streets. When dead, their bodies 
were still dragged along till they were torn to pieces, or so disfigured 
that they could not be distinguished if at length recovered by their 
friends. Those who strayed out of the city to breathe the purer air 
of the country, or the strangers who incautiously entered the walls to 
visit and relieve their friends, were treated in the same way, and 
beaten with clubs till they were dead. The quays were watched, 
and, on the landing of a Jewish vessel, the merchandise was plun- 
dered, the owners and their vessel burned. Their houses were like- 
wise set on fire, and whole families, men, women, and children, 
burned alive. Yet even this was a merciful death, compared with 
the sufferings of others. Sometimes, from want of wood, their perse- 
cutors could collect only a few wet sticks, and over these, stifled 
with smoke, and half-consumed, the miserable victims slowly expired. 
Sometimes they would mock their sufferings by affected sorrow ; but 
if any of their own relatives or friends betrayed the least emotion, 
they were seized, scourged, tortured, or even crucified." 

When these outrages had reached their height, Flaccus summoned 
before his tribunal, not the perpetrators, but the victims; and thirty- 
eight of the chiefs of the Alexandrian Sanhedrim were publicly 
scourged in the theatre, many dying under the blows. The survivors 
were cast into prison ; and many other Jews were seized and cruci- 
fied. " It was the morning spectacle of the theatre, to see the Jews 
scourged, tortured both with the rack and with pulleys, and then led 
away to execution ; and to this horrible tragedy immediately suc- 
ceeded farces and dances, and other theatrical amusements." All this 
time Flaccus was keeping back a loyal address, which the Alexandrian 
Jews had drawn up by the advice of Agrippa, who, discovering the 
fraud, sent a copy to the emperor. A centurion was sent to arrest 
Flaccus. He was banished, and, after enduring much suffering and 
contempt in exile, was at length put to a cruel death. 

The preceding narrative, so strikingly illustrative of the condition 
of one branch of the Hebrew race, is furnished by Philo, the cele- 
brated Alexandrian Jew, who brought the philosophic principles of 
Neo-Platonism to the defence of the ancient faith. If he may be 
reasonably suspected of exaggerating the sufferings and especially the 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 937 

submissive temper of his countrymen, there seems no reason for doubt- 
ing his graphic account of the mission which he headed to Caligula, 
to whom the Greeks also sent a deputation headed by Apion, a name 
celebrated by Joseph us's refutation of his book against the Jews. 
They arrived just at the time when Caligula, incensed at the destruc- 
tion of an altar which one of the Roman publicani had erected to the 
emperor at Jamnia, had issued the edict for the erection of his own 
colossal statue in the Holy of Holies, and the dedication of the Tem- 
ple to himself in the character of Jupiter ; and this blow at the chief 
sanctuary of their religion seemed fatal to their own cause. Never- 
theless Caius received them with a favor, in which it soon appeared 
that contempt was the chief element. The celebrated interview nar- 
rated by Philo exhibits probably the prevalent feeling of the Romans 
toward the Jews, though distorted into peculiar grotesqueness by the 
emperor's insane levity. It is thus related by the eloquent historian 
of the Jews : — " After a long and wearisome attendance, the deputies 
were summoned to a final audience. To judge so grave a cause, as 
Philo complains with great solemnity, the emperor did not appear in 
a public court, encircled by the wisest of his senators ; the embassy 
was received in the apartments of two contiguous villas in the neigh- 
borhood of Rome, called after Lamia and Maecenas. The bailiffs of 
these villas were commanded at the same time to have all the rooms 
thrown open for the emperor's inspection. The Jews entered, made a 
profound obeisance, and saluted Caligula as Augustus and Emperor 
— but the sarcastic smile on the face of Caius gave them little hopes 
of success. 'You are then' — he said, showing his teeth as he spoke 
— ' those enemies of the gods who alone refuse to acknowledge my 
divinity, but worship a deity whose name you dare not pronounce ' — 
and here, to the horror of the Jews, he uttered the awful name. The 
Greek deputies from Alexandria, who were present, thought them- 
selves certain of their triumph, and began to show their exultation by 
insulting gestures ; and Isidore, one of the accusers of Flaccus, came 
forward to aggravate the disobedience of the Jews. He accused them 
of being the only nation who had refused to sacrifice to the emperor. 
The Jews with one voice disclaimed the calumny, and asserted that 
they had three times offered sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor — 
and indeed had been the first to do so on his accession. ' Be it so/ 
rejoined the emporor — * ye have sacrified for me, but not to me.' The 
Jews stood aghast and trembling. On a sudden Caius began to run 
all over the house, up stairs and down stairs ; inspecting the men's 
and women's apartments ; finding fault and giving orders, while the 



938 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

poor Jews followed him from room to room, amid the mockery of the 
attendants. After he had given his orders, the emperor suddenly 
turned round to them : i Why is it that you do not eat pork ?' The 
whole court burst into peals of laughter. The Jews temperately re- 
plied, that different nations had different usages : some persons would 
not eat lamb. i They are right/ said the emperor, ' it is an insipid 
meat.' After further trial of their patience, he demanded, with his 
usual abruptness, on what they grounded their right of citizenship. 
They began a long and grave legal argument ; but they had not pro- 
ceeded far, when Caius began to run up and down the great hall, and 
to order that some blinds, of a kind of transparent stone, like glass, 
which admitted the light, and excluded the heat and air, should be 
put up against the windows. As he left that room, he asked the 
Jews, with a more courteous air, if they had any thing to say to him; 
they began again their harangue, in the middle of which he started 
away into another chamber, to see some old paintings. The ambassa- 
dors of the Jews at length were glad to retreat, and felt happy to 
escape with their lives. Caius gave them their dismissal in these 
words : — ' Well, after all, they do not seem so bad ; but rather a poor 
foolish people, who cannot believe that I am a god.'" 

Whatever the Alexandrian Jews may have gained from the con- 
temptuous forbearance and mad humor of the despot, there was no 
relenting of his purpose to desecrate the Temple at Jerusalem ; and 
he directed two legions to be withdrawn from the Euphrates, if neces- 
sarv, to put down resistance. Petronius reluctantly ordered the statue 
to be made by Sidonian workmen, while he communicated his mas- 
ter's intentions to the Jews. The news had no sooner spread, than 
the people, without distinction of rank, age, or sex, nocked in thou- 
sands, though unarmed, to the winter-quarters of the governor at 
Ptolemais, to let him know that they dreaded the wrath of God more 
than that of the emperor. The like scene was repeated, when Petro- 
nius removed his headquarters to Tiberias, to gain more certain 
information of the state of the country. When he replied to their 
supplications by asking them, "Are ye resolved, then, to wage war 
against your emperor?" they all fell on their faces to the earth, ex- 
claiming, " We have no thought of war, but we will submit to be 
massacred rather than infringe our Law." For forty days they re- 
mained as suppliants before the prefect, neglecting the season for 
sowing, till he became alarmed lest a famine should drive the people 
to robbery. Petronius announced to an assembly convened at Tiberias 
his resolution to postpone the work till he had further orders from 




o 

H 


o 
o 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 939 

Rome. The influence of Agrippa with Caligula obtained the suspen- 
sion of the decree ; and the tyrant was preparing to vent his mortifi- 
cation upon Petronius, when the dagger of Cassius Chserea delivered 
the empire from the daily dread of some new excess of madness 
(a. d. 41). 

When the body of Caligula was left by his assassins in the dark 
corridor between the palace and the amphitheatre, the only man who 
protected it from insult was the Jewish prince, whose name has been 
more than once mentioned. This was Herod Agrippa I., the son 
of Aristobulus and Berenice, and grandson of Herod the Great. He 
was sent to Rome on his father's execution, and was brought up with 
Drusus the son of Tiberius. On the death of Drusus, he found him- 
self excluded from the emperor's presence, and was besides .over- 
whelmed with debt. Returning to Palestine, he obtained through 
his sister Herodias the protection of Herod Antipas, who made him 
governor of Tiberias. But a quarrel soon took place, and after 
strange vicissitudes and adventures, Agrippa obtained a loan from the 
Alabarch of Alexandria, which enabled him to return to Italy. He 
attached himself to the young Caius (Caligula), and having been 
overheard to express a hope for his friend's speedy succession, he was 
thrown into prison by Tiberius, where he remained till the accession 
of Caligula, A. D. 37. The new emperor gave him the governments 
formerly held by the tetrarchs Philip and Lysanias, and bestowed on 
him the ensigns of royalty and other marks of favor, and he arrived 
in Palestine in the following year, after visiting Alexandria. The 
jealousy of Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias was excited by these 
distinctions, and they sailed to Rome in the hope of supplanting 
Agrippa in the emperor's favor. As we have 'Seen, Agrippa was 
aware of their design, and anticipated it by a counter-charge against 
Antipas of treasonable correspondence with the Parthians. Antipas 
failed to answer the accusation, and was banished to Gaul (a. d. 39), 
and his dominions were added to those already held by Agrippa. 

During the brief wild reign of Caligula, Agrippa continued his 
faithful friend, and used his influence, as we have seen, on behalf of 
the Jews. Having paid the last honors to his patron's remains, he 
smoothed the path of his successor to the throne by his activity and 
discretion in carrying messages between the Senate and the praetorian 
camp. Claudius rewarded him with the kingdom of Judaea and 
Samaria, in addition to his tetrarchy, and thus the dominions of Herod 
the Great were reunited under his grandson (a. d. 41). We must 
doubtless ascribe to the emperor's philosophic spirit, as well as to his 



940 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

favor for Agrippa, his edict for the toleration of the Jewish religion, 
the reality of which was proved by the punishment inflicted by Pe- 
tronius on the inhabitants of Dora for insulting a Jewish synagogue. 

Agrippa arrived in Palestine to take possession of his kingdom, 
and one of his first acts was to visit the Temple, where he offered 
sacrifice, and dedicated the golden chain which the late emperor had 
presented him after his release from captivity. It was hung over the 
Treasury. Simon was made high-priest ; and the house-tax was re- 
mitted. Unlike the other princes of his family, Agrippa was a strict 
observer of the Law, and he sought with success the favor of the 
Jews. He resided very much at Jerusalem, and added materially to 
its prosperity and convenience. 

The city had for some time been extending itself toward the north, 
and a large suburb had come into existence on the high ground north 
of the Temple, and outside the " second wall " which enclosed the 
northern part of the great central valley of the city. Hitherto the 
outer portion of this suburb — which was called Bezetha, or " New 
town," and had grown up very rapidly — was unprotected by any 
formal wall, and practically lay open to attack. This defenceless 
condition attracted the attention of Agrippa, who, like the first Herod, 
was a great builder, and he commenced enclosing it in so substantial 
and magnificent a manner as to excite the suspicions of the prefect of 
Syria, Vibius Marsus, at whose instance the work was stopped by 
Claudius. Subsequently the Jews seem to have purchased permission 
to complete the work. This new wall, the outermost of the three 
which enclosed the city on the north, started from the old wall at the 
Tower Hippicus, near the northwest corner of the city. It ran north- 
ward, bending by a large circuit to the east, and at last returning 
southward along the western brink of the valley of Kedron, till it 
joined the southern wall of the Temple. Thus it enclosed not only 
the new suburb, but also the district immediately north and northeast 
of the Temple on the brow of the Kedron valley, which up to the 
present date had lain open to the country. The huge stones which 
still lie — many of them undisturbed — in the east and south walls of 
the Haram area, especially the southeast corner under the "Bath and 
Cradle of Jesus," are parts of this wall. 

The year 44 began with the murder of St. James by Agrippa, a 
deed expressly ascribed to his desire to please the Jews, followed at 
the Passover by the imprisonment and escape of St. Peter. The 
exercise of the power of life and death shows that, though Agrippa's 
power was entirely dependent on the emperor's pleasure, it could 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 941 

scarcely be called nominal ; but Josephus expressly calls it an illegal 
assumption of a power that belonged only to the Roman procurator. 
It was, in fact, the systematic policy of Claudius to govern those 
parts of the East, which had not yet been fully incorporated into the 
Empire, through their own petty princes ; and thus he restored 
Antiochus to the kingdom of Commagene, and Mithridates to that of 
Pontus, as well as Agrippa to the throne of Herod. The dependent 
prince was probably acting in the spirit of the emperor, when he 
assembled five neighboring kings at a magnificent entertainment at 
Tiberias ; his brother Herod, king of Chalcis ; Antiochus, king of 
Gommagene; Cotys, king of the Lesser Armenia; Sampsigeranus, 
king of Emesa ; and Polemon, king of Pontus : and, when Yibius 
Marsus, jealous of the meeting, ordered the kings back to their terri- 
tories, Agrippa had the boldness to write to Claudius, soliciting the 
prefect's recall. 

Nature had secured for Agrippa the inheritance of at least one part 
of the greatness of Solomon. Now, as then, the maritime cities of 
Phoenicia depended for their corn upon the produce of the fertile 
plain districts of Palestine : — " Their country was nourished by the 
king's country." The vast influence which he thus exerted is proved 
by the humility with which the Tyrians and Sidonians deprecated his 
resentment ; and the pomp amid which he received their envoys at 
Csesarea, indicating a desire to assume all the greatness of his grand-* 
father, only made the likeness of their deaths the more conspicuous. 

In the fourth year of his reign over the whole of Judaea (a. d. 44) 
Agrippa celebrated some games at Csesarea in honor of the emperor. 
When he appeared in the theatre on the second day in a royal robe 
made entirely of silver stuff, which shone in the morning light, his 
flatterers saluted him as a god ; and suddenly he was seized with ter- 
rible pains, and being carried from the theatre to the palace, died after 
five days' agony a loathsome death, like those of the great persecutors, 
Antiochus Epiphanes, and his own grandfather. "After being racked 
for five days with intestine pains," " he was eaten of worms, and gave 
up the ghost." (a. d. 44.) The miraculous and judicial character of 
his death is distinctly affirmed by the sacred historian : "Immediately 
the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory." 
The Greeks of Sebaste and Csesarea, with his own soldiers, showed 
brutal exultation at his death, and the censure which the riot brought 
down from Claudius upon the Roman soldiers embittered their feel- 
ings toward the Jews to such a degree that Josephus regards this as 
one of the chief causes of the Jewish war. 



942 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Herod Agrippa II. , the son of Herod Agrippa I., was at Rome 
when his father died. He was only seventeen years old, and Claudius 
made his youth a reason for not giving him his father's kingdom, as 
he had intended. The emperor afterward gave him the kingdom of 
Chalcis (a. d. 50), which was vacant by the death of his uncle Herod 
(a. d. 48) ; and this was soon exchanged for the tetrarchies of Ituraea 
and Abilene, to which Nero added certain cities of the Decapolis about 
the Lake of Galilee (a. d. 52), But beyond the limits of his 'own 
dominions, Agrippa was permitted to exercise throughout Judaea that 
influence which even Paul recognized as welcome to a Jew, who saw 
in him the last scion of the Asmonsean house. In particular, he suc- 
ceeded to those (as we should now say) ecclesiastical functions which 
the tolerant policy of Rome had permitted his uncle Herod to exer- 
cise — the government of the Temple and the nomination of the high- 
priest. He w T as, as we learn from the same authority, " expert in all 
customs and questions which are among the Jews ;" and so well able 
to understand the Jewish Scriptures, that the Apostle's reasonings 
from them called forth his memorable confession, " Almost thou per- 
suadeet me to be a Christian." He gratified his hereditary taste for 
magnificence by adorning Jerusalem and Berytus with costly build- 
ings ; but in such a manner as mortally to offend the Jews ; and his 
relations to his sister Berenice (or Bernice), the widow of his uncle 
Herod, were of a very doubtful character. But his one leading prin- 
ciple was to preserve fidelity to Rome. His sister, Drusilla, was mar- 
ried to Felix, the procurator of Judaea under Claudius and Xero ; and 
the narrative of St. Paul's trial shows Agrippa's intimacy with Festus, 
the successor of Felix. In the last great rebellion of Judaea, he took 
part with Rome. With the destruction of Jerusalem (a. d. 70), an 
end was put to this last Jewish principality. Retaining, however, his 
empty title as king, Agrippa survived the fate of his country in the 
enjoyment of splendid luxury, retired to Rome with Berenice, and died 
there in the third year of Trajan (a. d. 100). Of the other members 
of Herod's house, it is needless to say more than appears in the genea- 
logical table. 

Shortly after the death of Herod Agrippa I., Cuspius Fadus ar- 
rived from Rome as procurator, under Longinus as prefect of Syria. 
An attempt was made by the Romans to regain possession of the pon- 
tificial robes ; but on reference to the emperor the attempt was aban- 
doned. In A. D. 45 commenced a severe famine, which lasted two 
years. To the people of Jerusalem it was alleviated by the presence 
of Helena, queen of Adiabene, a convert to the Jewish faith, who 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 943 



visited the city in 46 and imported corn and dried fruit, which she 
distributed to the poor. During her stay Helena constructed, at a 
distance of three stadia from the city, a tomb marked by three pyra- 
mids, to which her remains, with those of her son, were afterward 
brought. It was situated to the north, and formed one of the points 
in the course of the new wall. This famine furnishes one of the chief 
data of the chronology of the Acts, in the journey of Paul and Bar- 
nabas, bringing the contributions for the poor Christians at Jerusalem, 
which had been collected at Antioch in consequence of the prediction 
of the famine by Agabus. 

Fad us was succeeded by Tiberius 
Alexander, an apostate Egyptian 
Jew (a. d. 46), and he by Venti- 
dius Cumantjs (a. d. 48 or 50). A 
frightful tumult happened at the 
Passover of this year, caused, as on 
former occasions, by the presence of 
the Roman soldiers in the Antonia, 
and in the courts and cloisters of the 
Temple, during the festival. Ten, 
or, according to another account, 
twenty thousand are said to have 
met their deaths, not by the sword, 
but trodden to death in the crush 
through the narrow lanes which led M 
from the Temple down into the city. * 
After other outrages, Cumanus was 
recalled to Rome, where Agrippa's 
influence procured his banishment 
(a. d. 53), and Felix was appointed 
in his room, partly at the instance of 
Jonathan, the then high-priest. The 
hatred of Claudius to "foreign su- 
perstition" had meanwhile been vented in an edict banishing the Jews 
from Rome (a. d. 52). Felix ruled the province in a mean, cruel, 
and profligate manner. With the compendious description of Tacitus 
the fuller details of Josephus agree, though his narrative is tinged 
with his hostility to the Jewish patriots and zealots, whom, under the 
name of robbers, he describes Felix as extirpating and crucifying by 
hundreds. His period of office was full of troubles and seditions. We 
read of his putting down false Messiahs, the followers of an Egyptian 




i 



ROMAN SOLDIER. 



944 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

magician, riots between the Jews and Syrians in Caesarea, and between 
the priests and the principal citizens of Jerusalem. A set of ferocious 
fanatics, whom Josephus calls Sicarii (Assassins), had lately begun to 
make their appearance in the city, whose creed it was to rob and mur- 
der all whom they judged hostile to Jewish interests. Felix, weary 
of the remonstrances of Jonathan on his vicious life, employed some 
of these wretches to assassinate him. The high-priest was killed in 
the Temple while sacrificing. The murder was never inquired into, 
and emboldened by this, the Sicarii repeated their horrid act; thus 
adding, in the eyes of the Jews, the awful crime of sacrilege to that 
of murder. The city, too, was filled with impostors pretending to 
inspiration, but inspired only with hatred to all government and order. 
Nor was the disorder confined to the lower classes : the chief people 
of the city, the very high-priests themselves, robbed the threshing- 
floors of the tithes common to all the priests, and led parties of rioters 
to open tumult and fighting in the streets. In fact, not only Jerusa- 
lem, but the whole country far and wide, was in the most frightful 
confusion and insecurity, and, though want of vigor was not among 
the faults of Felix, his severe measures and cruel retributions seemed 
only to accelerate the already rapid course of the Jews to ruin. His 
detention of St. Paul in prison, in the hope of extorting money, adds 
to the traits of tyranny the baseness of the freedman. Tacitus says, 
in one word, " By every form of cruelty and lust, he wielded the 
power of a king in the spirit of a slave." Such were the crimes that 
weighed on the conscience of the Apostle's judge — dreading the ven- 
geance of his earthly master, while he had learned something of higher 
principles from his Jewish wife, Drusilla. No wonder that, as Paul 
" reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix 
trembled." His crowning outrage was a massacre of the Jews at 
Csesarea, on the occasion of one of their frequent conflicts with the 
Greeks. For this he was accused before Nero, after his recall (a. d. 
60) ; but the party of his brother Pallas had still influence enough to 
save him from punishment; while the Greeks of Csesarea obtained an 
imperial decree depriving the Jewish citizens of their rights. These 
affairs of Caesarea hastened the coming contest : the Greeks became 
more and more insulting ; the Jews more and more turbulent. 

In the end of A. D. 60, or the beginning of A. D. 61, Porcius Fes- 
tus succeeded Felix as procurator. Festus was an able and upright 
officer, and at the same time conciliatory toward the Jews, as he proved 
in his judgment on St. Paul, whose trial took place, not at Jerusalem, 
but at Caesarea. In the brief period of his administration he kept 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 945 

down the robbers with a strong hand, and gave the province a short 
breathing time. On one occasion both Festus and Agrippa came into 
collision with the Jews at Jerusalem. Agrippa had added an apart- 
ment to the old Asmonsean palace on the eastern brow of the Upper 
City, which commanded a full view into the interior of the courts of 
the Temple. This view the Jews intercepted by building a wall on 
the west side of the inner quadrangle. But the wall not only inter- 
cepted Agrippa's view, it also interfered with that from the outer clois- 
ters, in which the Roman guard was stationed during the festivals. 
Both Agrippa and Festus interfered, and required it to be pulled 
down ; but the Jews pleaded that, once built, it was a part of the 
Temple, and entreated to be allowed to appeal to Nero. Nero allowed 
their plea, but retained as hostages the high-priest and treasurer, who 
had headed the deputation. Agrippa appointed Joseph, called Cabi, to 
the vacant priesthood, in which he was shortly after succeeded by Annas 
or Ananus, the fifth son of the Annas before whom our Lord was taken. 
In 62 (probably) Festus died, and was succeeded after a time by 
Albinus. In the interval a persecution was commenced against the 
Christians at the instance of the new high-priest, a rigid Sadducee, and 
St. James and others were arraigned before the Sanhedrim. They 
were " delivered to be stoned," but St. James at any rate appears not 
to have been killed till a few years later. The act gave great offence 
to all, and cost Annas his office, after he had held it but three months. 
Jesus (Joshua), the son of Damneus, succeeded him. Albinus began 
his rule by endeavoring to keep down the Sicarii and other disturbers 
of the peace ; and indeed he preserved throughout a show of justice 
and vigor, though in secret greedy and rapacious. But before his recall 
he pursued his end more openly, and priests, people, and governors 
alike seem to have been bent on rapine and bloodshed : rival high- 
priests headed bodies of rioters and stoned each other, and in the 
words of Josephus, " all things grew from worse to worse." The evils 
were aggravated by two occurences, — the release by Albinus, before 
his departure, of all the smaller criminals in the prisons; and, 
secondly, the discharge of an immense body of workmen on the com- 
pletion of the repairs of the Temple. An endeavor was made to 
remedy the latter by inducing Agrippa to rebuild the eastern cloister ; 
but he refused to undertake a work of such magnitude, though he 
consented to pave the city with marble. The repairs of a part of the 
sanctuary that had fallen down, and the renewal of the foundations of 
some portions, were deferred for the present, but the materials were 
collected and stored in one of the courts. 
60 



946 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Nothing was wanting to fill the measure of calamity which this 
fruitful and once happy land was to exhaust, but the nomination of a 
governor, like Gessius Florus, in 65, who made the people look back 
with regret to the administration of the rapacious Albinus. Albinus 
at least dissembled his cruelties and exactions. Relying on the pro- 
tection of the Empress, who was attached to his wife Cleopatra by 
long friendship and kindred disposition, Florus made an ostentatious 
display of his oppressions. Without compunction and without shame, 
as crafty as he was cruel, he laid deliberate schemes of iniquity, by 
which, at some distant period, he was to reap his harvest of plunder. 
He pillaged not only individuals, but even communities, and seemed 
to grant a general indemnity for spoliation, if he was only allowed his 
fair portion of the plunder. Many villages and towns were entirely 
deserted ; the inhabitants left their native country to fly beyond the 
reach of his administration. Cestius Gallus, a man of a congenial 
spirit, commanded in Syria. The fear of Floru^, as long as Cestius 
remained in Syria, prevented the Jews from appealing to his tribunal : 
they would not have been suffered to arrive there in safety. But 
when Cestius, during the days preceding the Passover, visited Jeru- 
salem, three millions of suppliants, that is, the whole population 
assembled for the great annual feast, surrounded him, and entreated 
his interference. Florus stood by the side of Cestius, turning their 
complaints into ridicule. Cestius, however, promised that he would 
use his interest with Florus to treat them with greater moderation, 
and Florus, without further reproof, was permitted to escort his col- 
league in iniquity, on his way to Antioch, as far as Csesarea. 

In the meantime wild and awful prodigies, thus the Jewish annal- 
ist relates, had filled the timid with apprehensions of the approaching 
desolation. But the blind and desperate multitude neglected all 
these signs of Almighty wrath. A comet, which had the appearance 
of a sword, hung above the city for a whole year. While the people 
were assembled at the feast of unleavened bread, at the sixth hour of 
the night, a sudden light, as bright as day, shone about the altar and 
the Temple, and continued for nearly half an hour. A cow led forth 
to sacrifice, brought forth a calf. The inner gate on the side of the 
Temple looking eastward was of brass, and of such immense weight 
as to require twenty men to close it in the evening. It was fastened 
by strong iron bolts, let into the stone door posts. Suddenly this 
gate flew open, and it was with much difficulty that all the assembled 
guard could reclose it. This the vulgar considered a good omen, as 
indicating that God had opened the gate of blessing ; but the wise 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 94? 

more sadly interpreted it as a manifest sign of the insecurity of the 
Temple, and that it prefigured the opening of the gate of the Holy 
Place to the enemy. A few days after this festival, a still more in- 
credible circumstance occurred — such, says Josephus, as would appear 
a fable, had it not been attested by eye-witnesses, and justified by the 
subsequent events. Before sunset, chariots and armed squadrons 
were seen in the heavens ; they mingled and formed in array so as to 
seem to encircle the whole city in their rapid and terrific career. 
And on the Pentecost, when the priests on duty entered by night 
into the Temple, they said that they heard a movement and a noise, 
and presently the voice as it were of a great host, which said, " Let 
us depart hence." More alarming still ! while the city was yet at 
peace and in prosperity, a countryman named Jesus, son of Ananus, 
began suddenly to cry aloud in the Temple : — "A voice from the east ! 
a voice from the west ! a voice from the four winds ! a voice against 
Jerusalem and against the Temple! a voice against the bridegrooms 
and the brides ! a voice against the whole people ! " Day and night in 
the narrow streets of the city he went along repeating these words in 
a loud voice. Some of the leaders seized him, and had him severely 
beaten. He uttered no remonstrance, no entreaty for mercy, he 
seemed entirely regardless about his own person, but still went on 
reiterating his fearful burden. The magistrates then apprehended 
him, and led him before Albinus, the Roman governor; there he was 
scourged till his bones could be seen ; he uttered neither shriek of 
pain, nor prayer for mercy, but raising his sad and broken voice as 
loud as he could, at every blow cried out, Woe, woe to Jerusalem ! 
Albinus demanded who he was, and whence he came ? he answered 
not a word. The Roman at length supposing that he was mad, let 
him go. All the four years that intervened before the war, the son 
of Ananas paid no attention to any one, and never spoke, excepting 
the same words, Woe, woe to Jerusalem I He neither cursed any one 
who struck him, nor thanked any one who gave him food. His only 
answer was the same melancholy presage. He was particularly 
active during the festivals, and then with greater frequency, and still 
deeper voice, he cried, Woe, woe to the city and to the Temple ! At 
length, during the siege, he suddenly cried out, Woe, woe to myself ! 
and was struck dead by a stone from a balista. 

It is not improbable that the prophecies of the approaching ruin 
of Jerusalem disseminated by the Christians might add to the general 
apprehension. Mingled as they were with the mass of the people, 
their distinct assurances that their Divine Teacher had foretold tho 



948 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



JERUSALEM AND ITS VALLEYS. 

speedy dissolution of the State, could scarcely remain unknown, espe- 
cially when, in obedience to the command of Christ, they abandoned 
Jerusalem in a body, and retreated to Pella, a town beyond the 
Jordan. 

There was another sign, which might have given warning to the 
political sagacity or to the humanity of the Romans, upon the nature 
of the approaching contest, as showing how immense a population 
they were thus driving to desperation, and what horrible carnage 
would be necessary before they could finally subdue the rebellious 
province. When Cestius Gallus was at Jerusalem, at the time of the 
Passover, he inquired the number of Jews present from all quarters. 
The priests counted the lambs sacrificed, and found 255,600. None 
but Jews, and those free from legal impurities, might sacrifice. 
Reckoning at a low average of ten to each lamb, the numbers were 
2,556,000. Josephus supposes that three millions would not have 
been an immoderate calculation. 

The fatal flame finally broke out in the old feud at Caesarea. The 
decree of Nero had assigned the magistracy of that city to the Greeks. 
It happened that the Jews had a synagogue, the ground around 
which belonged to a Greek. For this spot the Jews offered a much 
higher price than it was worth. It was refused ; and to annoy them 
as much as possible, the owner set up some mean shops and buildings 
upon it, and rendered the approach to the synagogue as narrow and 
difficult as he could. The more hot-headed of the Jewish youth 
interrupted the workmen. The men of greater wealth and influence, 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 949 

and among them John, a publican, collected the large sum of eight 
talents, and sent it as a bribe to Florus, that he might interfere and 
stop the building. Florus received the money, made great promises, 
and immediately set out from Caesarea for Sebaste, in order to leave 
full scope for the riot. On the following day, a Sabbath, while the 
Jews were crowding to the synagogue, a man overset an earthen 
vessel in the way, and began to sacrifice birds upon it. It has been 
conjectured that this was a particularly offensive jest. However this 
may be, the Jews were furious at the affront, and attacked the Greeks. 
The Greeks were already in arms, waiting this signal for the affray. 
Jucundus, the governor, attempted in vain to appease the tumult, 
till at length the Jews, being worsted, took up the books of their 
Law, and went away to Narbata, about seven and a half miles distant. 
John, the publican, with twelve of the highest rank, went to Samaria 
to Florus, implored his assistance, and modestly reminded him of the 
eight talents he had received. Florus threw them into prison with 
every mark of indignity. 

The news of this outrage and injustice spread to Jerusalem. The 
city was in a state of violent excitement. It was the deliberate pur- 
pose of Florus to drive the people to insurrection, both that all inquiry 
into his former oppressions might be drowned by the din of war, and 
that he might have better opportunities for plunder. He seized this 
critical moment to demand seventeen talents from the sacred treasury 
under pretence of Caesar's necessities. The demand produced a frantic 
disturbance, in the midst of which he approached the city with both 
cavalry and foot-soldiers. That night Florus took up his quarters in 
the royal palace — that of Herod at the northwest corner of the city. 
On the following morning he took his seat on the Bema, and the 
high-priest and other principal people being brought before him, he 
demanded that the leaders of the late riot should be given up. On 
their refusal, he ordered his soldiers to plunder the Upper City. This 
order was but too faithfully carried out ; every house was entered and 
pillaged, and the Jews driven out. In their attempt to get through 
the narrow streets, which lay in the valley between the Upper City 
and the Temple, many were caught and slain, others were brought 
before Florus, scourged, and then crucified. No grade or class was 
exempt. Jews who bore the Roman equestrian order were among the 
victims treated with most indignity. Queen Berenice herself — residing 
at that time in the Asmonaean palace in the very midst of the slaugh- 
ter — was so affected by the scene, as to intercede in person and bare- 
foot before Florus, but without avail ; and in returning she was 



950 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

herself nearly killed, and only escaped by taking refuge in her palace 
and calling her guards about her. The further details of this dread- 
ful tumult must be passed over. Florus was foiled in his attempt to 
press through the old city up into the Antonia — whence he would 
have had nearer access to the treasures — and finding that the Jews 
had broken down the north and west cloisters where they joined the 
fortress, so as to cut off the communication, he relinquished the attempt 
and withdrew to Csesarea. 

Cestius Gallus, the prefect of Syria, now found it necessary to visit 
the city in person, to examine into the causes of the revolt, to punish 
the guilty, and confirm the Roman party in their allegiance. In the 
meantime he sent forward Neopolitanus, a centurion, to prepare for 
his approach. At Jamnia, JNeopolitanus met with Agrippa, then on 
his return from Egypt, and communicated to him the object of his 
mission. Before they left Jamnia, a deputation of the priesthood and 
heads of the people appeared, to congratulate Agrippa on his return. 
Agrippa artfully dissembled his compassion, and even affected to re- 
prove the turbulent conduct of his countrymen. About seven or 
eight miles from Jerusalem, Neopolitanus and Agrippa were met by 
a more mournful procession. The people were preceded by the wives 
of those who had been slain. The women, with wild shrieks and 
outcries, called on Agrippa for protection ; and recounted to Neopoli- 
tanus all the miseries they had undergone from the cruelty of Florus. 
On the entrance of the king and the Roman into the city, they were 
led to the ruined market-place, and shown the shops that had been 
plundered, and the desolate houses w T here the inhabitants had been 
massacred. Neopolitanus, having passed through the whole city, and 
found it in profound peace, went up to the Temple, paid his adora- 
tions there in the court of the Gentiles, exhorted the people to main- 
tain their loyal demeanor, and returned to Cestius. 

Agrippa on his part, while declining to countenance the embassy 
which they proposed to send to Nero, did much to quiet the people. 
At his instance they rebuilt the part of the cloister which had been 
demolished, and collected the tribute in arrear, but the mere sugges- 
tion from him, that they should obey Florus until he was replaced, 
produced such a storm that he was obliged to leave the city. The 
seditious party in the Temple, led by young Eleazar, son of Ananias, 
rejected the offerings of the Roman Emperor, which had been regu- 
larly made since the time of Julius Caesar. This, as a direct renun- 
ciation of allegiance, was the true bee/inning of the war with Rome. 
Such acts were not done without resistance from the older and wiser 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 951 

people. But remonstrance was unavailing, the innovators would 
listen to no representations. The peace party, therefore, dispatched 
some of their number to Florus and to Agrippa, and the latter sent 
3000 horse-soldiers to assist in keeping order. 

Hostilities at once began. The peace party, headed by the high- 
priest, and fortified by Agrippa's soldiers, threw themselves into the 
Upper City. The insurgents held the Temple and the Lower City. 
In the Antonia was a small Roman garrison. Fierce contests lasted 
for seven days, each side endeavoring to take possession of the part 
held by the other. At last the insurgents, who behaved with the 
greatest ferocity, and were reinforced by a number of Sicarii, were 
triumphant. They gained the Upper City, driving all before them — 
the high-priest and other leaders into vaults and sewers, the soldiers 
into Herod's palace. The Asmonaean palace, the high-priest's house, 
and the repository of the archives — in Josephus's language, " the 
nerves of the city " — were set on fire. Antonia was next attacked, 
and in two days they had effected an entrance, sabred the garrison, 
and burned the fortress. The balistse and catapults found there were 
preserved for future use. The soldiers in Herod's palace were next 
besieged ; but so strong were the walls, and so stout the resistance, 
that it was three weeks before an entrance could be effected. The 
soldiers were at last forced from the palace into the three great towers 
on the adjoining wall with great loss ; and ultimately were all mur- 
dered in the most treacherous manner. The high-priest and his 
brother were discovered hidden in the aqueduct of the palace : they 
were instantly put to death. Thus the insurgents were now com- 
pletely masters of both city and Temple. 

On that very day and hour, by a coincidence which Josephus con- 
sidered providential, a dreadful retribution for the crimes of their 
countrymen was, as it were, pre-exacted from the Jews of Caesarea. 
The Greeks, now tolerably certain that to satiate their own animosity 
would be to please rather than offend the Romans, or, perhaps, under 
secret instructions from Florus, suddenly rose and massacred the Jews 
almost to a man ; in one hour 20,000, an incredible number, were 
said to be killed. Not a Jew appeared in Caesarea. The few who 
fled were seized by Florus, and sent to the galleys. 

By this act the whole nation was driven to madness. A war of 
extermination was at once begun between them and their neighbors. 
They rose, surprised, and laid waste all around the cities of Syria, 
around Philadelphia, Sebonitis, Gerasa, Pella (where probably as yet 
the Christians had not taken refuge), and Scythopolis. They made a 



952 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

sudden descent upon Gadara, Hippo, and Gaulonitis ; burnt and de- 
stroyed many places, and advanced boldly against Cedasa, a Tyrian 
town, and the important places of Ptolemais and Gaba, and even 
against Csesarea itself. Sebaste and Ascalon offered no resistance — at 
least to the inroad on their territory ; Anthedon and Gaza they razed 
to the ground. The hamlets around these cities were pillaged with 
immense slaughter. 

The Syrians took the alarm, and committed dreadful havoc on the 
Jewish inhabitants of their towns. Every city was, as it were, divi- 
ded into two hostile camps. The great object was to anticipate the 
work of carnage. The days were passed in mutual slaughter, the 
nights in mutual dread. In Scythopolis the Jews were thrown off 
their guard by the inhabitants, who suddenly fell upon them and put 
13,000 to the sword in a single night. The desire for plunder, as 
well as hatred of the Jewish race and religion, strongly influenced the 
Gentiles, and he who could display the largest heap of Jewish spoil 
was considered a hero. 

In all the remaining Grecian cities the example of Scythopolis was 
followed ; the Jews were ruthlessly massacred, and their property 
seized. Of the Syrian cities, Antioch, Sidon, and Apamea, alone 
showed real humanity, and forbade the death or even the imprison- 
ment of their Jewish fellow-citizens. The citizens of Gerasa not 
merelely abstained from injuring those who remained in their city, 
but escorted those who chose to leave it into the mountains. In the 
dominions of Agrippa open hostilities were prevented only by the 
prudence and firmness of Philip, one of the king's generals who had 
escaped the massacre at Jerusalem. In Alexandria, a disturbance in 
the amphitheatre brought on a terrible conflict between the Jews and 
the Roman soldiery, in which the Jewish quarter was plundered and 
burned. Neither age nor sex was spared ; the w T hole place was like 
a pool of blood, and 50,000 bodies were heaped up for burial. The 
few Jews who remained sued for mercy. Alexander, the Roman 
governor, put a stop promptly to the bloody work of the troops ; but 
the more vindictive Alexandrian populace, who had aided the mili- 
tary in the attack, had to be dragged by force from the dead bodies. 

In Palestine, where the terrible oppression and outrages of the suc- 
cessive Roman governors had already wrought up the Jews to despera- 
tion, and to the conviction that they had no friends among the 
Gentile nations, but one thing was wanting to plunge the whole 
nation headlong into the revolt. The belief in the immediate coming 
of the Messiah as the champion and deliverer of Israel, was universal, 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 953 

and is mentioned by Suetonius and by Tacitus as a great cause of the 
Avar ; but that which was wanting was a bright gleam of success to 
break the gloom that lowered all round the horizon, and animate the 
timid and desponding with the hope of possible victory. This was given 
by the imbecility of Cestius Gallus, the prefect of Syria. With an 
army of nearly 10,000 Roman troops and 13,000 auxiliaries, Cestius 
advanced to Ptolemais. He took, plundered and burned, without 
resistance, the wealthy city of Zebulon called Andron, which divided 
the territory of Ptolemais from the Jewish province of Upper Gali- 
lee. The adjacent district was laid waste, and Cestius returned to 
Ptolemais, from which place he pushed on to Csesarea. Thence he 
sent out an expedition, which captured Joppa without resistance. 
They pillaged the town and butchered the inhabitants, 8500 in num- 
ber, who made no effort to escape. The district of Narbatene, near 
Csesarea, was laid waste with fire and sword by the cavalry ; and 
Galilee was subdued with unrelenting sternness by Gallus, a lieuten- 
ant of Cestius. 

Cestius now marched directly upon Jerusalem, which was crowded 
with the Jews who had come up to the Feast of Tabernacles. He 
burned Lydda on his way, and after ascending the hills near Beth- 
horon, encamped at Gaboa, a little more than six miles from Jerusa- 
lem. At the news of his approach, the Jews broke off the festival, 
flew to arms, and paid no more respect to the Sabbath. Animated 
doubtless by the recollection of the victories of Joshua and of Judas 
Maccabseus at Beth-horon, they swarmed out of Jerusalem, and the 
next day, as Cestius marched through the pass, fell upon him with 
fury, and struck him such a terrible blow that his army would have 
been destroyed but for his cavalry. The Jews then made good their 
retreat, and some of their detached parties under Simon, son of Gioras, 
hung upon the rear of the Romans as they ascended the hill of Beth- 
horon and inflicted considerable damage upon them. Cestius remained 
quiet for three days, the Jews keeping watch on the hills, waiting for 
his troops to move. 

Meanwhile Agrippa endeavored to effect a reconciliation between 
his countrymen and the Romans. He offered them in the name of 
Cestius amnesty for all that had passed, upon the single condition of 
submission. His messengers were attacked by the insurgents, but 
enough of his message became known to produce a division in the 
city, and taking advantage of this, Cestius pushed his advance to 
Scopus, about a mile to the north of the walls. After waiting three 
days to receive the surrender of the city, he advanced to the attack. 



954 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The insurgents, struck with consternation at the discipline of the 
Roman army, abandoned the outer walls, and fled to the Temple and 
other fortified places within the city. Cestius at once occupied the 
suburb of Bezetha, which he burned. Then he advanced upon the 
Upper City, and encamped before the palace. A prompt assault would 
have carried the works, for the insurgents were divided and disheart- 
ened ; but Cestius resolved to suspend the attack, being influenced, it 
is believed, by the hope of the surrender of the city by means of a 
powerful peace party within the walls. His delay proved fatal to 
him, for the insurgent leaders detected the intrigue of the peace men, 
and threw the leaders of the movement headlong from the walls, and 
overawed the others. The war faction now gained courage, and man- 
ning the works repelled for five days the attacks of the Roman army, 
and inflicted such annoyance upon them that Cestius suddenly called 
off his troops, and to the universal surprise, retreated entirely from 
the town. The Jews at once passed from the depression to which 
they were beginning to succumb, to the wildest courage, and sallying 
out in dense numbers they hung upon the rear of the Roman army, 
and by their fierce attacks that day and the next forced Cestius to 
continue his retreat. The further he retreated the more daring the 
Jews became ; they harassed his rear, and coming along cross roads, 
they took his files in flank. Thus attacked on all sides, the Romans 
could not turn to make head, and the road was strewn with their 
dead, every one who for an instant quitted the ranks was cut off. At 
the pass of Beth-horon the retreating army was hemmed in by the 
Jews. The fight became a massacre, and the whole Roman army 
must have fallen, had not night come on, which enabled the greater 
part to make its w r ay to Beth-horon. The Jews crowned every hill, 
and blocked up every pass around. 

Cestius, despairing of being able openly to force his way, began to 
think of securing his personal safety by flight. He selected 400 of his 
bravest men, distributed them about the defences of the camp, with 
orders to mount guard, and in the morning to display all their ensigns 
that the Jews might suppose the whole army was still stationary. He 
then retreated in silence thirty stadia, not quite four miles. At the 
break of day the Jews discovered that the camp was deserted ; enraged 
at the manoeuvre, they rushed to the assault, and slew the four hun- 
dred to a man. They then pursued Cestius with the utmost rapidity. 
The Romans, who had got the start of several hours during the night, 
hastened their retreat, which bore every appearance of a rout. They 
were pursued by the Jews as far as Antipatris, when the latter, find- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 955 

ing they could not overtake the fugitives, abandoned the pursuit to 
look after the spoil. All the military engines, the catapults, batter- 
ing-rams used in besieging cities, were abandoned by the Romans to 
the Jews, who afterward employed them with dreadful effect against 
their former masters. The dead were stripped, the immense booty 
collected, and the conquerors returned to Jerusalem, which they re- 
entered with hymns of victory, having suffered hardly any loss on 
their own part, and having slain of the Romans and their allies, 5300 
foot and 380 horse. Never since the defeat of Varus in the forests 
of Germany had the Roman arms received so disgraceful an affront, 
or suffered so serious a loss. 

Judaea was now in open rebellion against Rome. It was a mad 
and desperate revolt, for to declare war against Rome was to defy the 
whole force of the civilized world. The insurgents neither had nor 
could hope for allies ; for the whole civilized world was at peace, and 
none of the Roman provinces were likely to assist a race whom they 
despised in a struggle for independence. Even their own brethren in 
other lands, though, as Josephus hints in one place, solicited by am- 
bassadors, either took no interest in the fate of their country, or were 
too sadly engaged in endeavoring to shield themselves and their fami- 
lies from the storm of public detestation and persecution which assailed 
them. 

Judaea itself was unprepared for the war. Many of the fortified 
places were in the hands of the Romans ; the insurgents were without 
organization or an acknowledged leader, without arms, without pro- 
visions of any kind for a long war, and without any military engines, 
save those they had captured from the enemy. Worse than all, they 
were divided among themselves, and in every city and town there was 
to be found a timid party ready to purchase peace on any terms. Their 
only trust was in their own stubborn patience and daring valor, in 
the stern fanaticism with which they looked upon themselves as the 
soldiers of their God, and in the wild hope that heaven would work 
some miraculous revolution in their favor. 

Yet, however frantic and desperate the insurrection, why should the 
Jews alone be excluded from that generous sympathy which is always 
awakened by the history of a people throwing off the galling yoke of 
oppression, and manfully resisting to the utmost in the assertion of 
their freedom ? Surely, if ever people were justified in risking the 
peace of their country for liberty, the grinding tyranny of the succes- 
sive Roman procurators, and the deliberate and systematic cruelties of 
Florus, were enough to have maddened a less high-spirited and in- 



956 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

tractable race into revolt. It is true that the war was carried on with 
unexampled atrocity ; but, on the other hand, insurrectionary warfare 
is not the best school for the humaner virtues ; and horrible oppression 
is apt to awaken the fiercer and more savage, not the loftier and nobler 
passions of our nature. And it must be borne in mind that we have 
the history of the war only on the authority of some brief passages in 
the Roman authors, and the narrative of one to whom, notwithstand- 
ing our respect for his abilities and virtues, it is impossible not to 
assign the appellation of renegade. Josephus, writing to conciliate 
the Romans, both to his own person and to the miserable remnant of 
his people, must be received with some mistrust. He uniformly calls 
the more obstimate insurgents, who continued desperately faithful to 
that cause which he deserted, by the odious name of robbers ; but it 
may be remembered that the Spanish guerillas, who were called patriots 
in London, were brigands in Paris. It is true that the resistance of 
many was the result of the wildest fanaticism. But we must not for- 
get in what religious and historical recollections the Jews had been 
nurtured. To say nothing of the earlier and miraculous period of 
their history, what precedents of hope w r ere offered by the more recent 
legends of the daring and triumphant Maccabees. It is, moreover, 
true that the Son of Man had prophesied the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, and that the Xew Testament appears to indicate that the measure 
of wickedness in the Jewish people having been filled up in the rejec- 
tion of Christ, they were doomed from that time to inevitable ruin. 
But we must avoid the perilous notion of confounding the Divine 
foreknowledge with the necessary causation of events. According to 
the first principles of the Mosaic constitution, national guilt led to 
national ruin. But, still, the motives which actuated many in the 
fatal struggle that led to the accomplishment of the Divine predictions, 
may have been noble and generous. It was the national rejection of 
Christ, not the resistance of Rome, which was culpable. The Jew, 
though guilty of refusing to be a Christian, might still be a high- 
minded and self-devoted patriot. Although we may lament that the 
gentle and pacific virtues of Christianity did not spread more gene- 
rally through the lovely and fertile region of Palestine, yet this is no 
reason why we should refuse our admiration to the bravery, or our 
deepest pity to the sufferings, of the Jewish people. Let us not read 
the fate of the Holy City in that unchristian spirit which prevailed 
during the Dark Ages, when every Jew was considered a personal 
enemy of Christ, and therefore a legitimate object of hatred and per- 
secution, but rather in the spirit of Him who, when He looked for- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 95T 

ward with prophetic foreknowledge to its desolation, nevertheless was 
seen " to weep over Jerusalem." 

The news of the disaster to the army created a marked sensation at 
Rome. Cestius threw the whole blame of the war on Floras. ]S T ero, 
says Joseph us, affected to treat the affair lightly ; he expressed great 
contempt for the revolt, but great anger at the misconduct of Cestius ; 
yet he could not help betraying visible marks of disturbance and ter- 
ror. His real estimate of the affair may be judged by his committing 
the province of Syria to Vespasian, the ablest of the Roman generals, 
and who was in disgrace at the time for having failed to admire suffi- 
ciently the fine voice and style of singing of the theatrical Emperor. 
Vespasian displayed characteristic promptness. He at once sent his 
son, Titus, to Alexandria, to conduct the fifth and tenth legions to 
Palestine ; while he himself travelled with all speed by land to Syria, 
collecting all the Roman troops on his way and forces from the neigh- 
boring kings. 

In the mean time the insurgents were not inactive. The more pru- 
dent withdrew to places of safety, and the rest were forced to unite 
with the war party. They called a general assembly in the Temple 
and proceeded to elect governors and commanders. They chose Joseph, 
the son of Gorion, and Ananus, the chief priest, whom they invested 
with absolute authority in the city. Eleazar, who had taken such a 
prominent part in the first insurrection, was passed over entirely, as 
he was suspected of aiming at kingly power ; but, as the chief part 
of the funds lay in his hands, he was soon enabled, through the great 
want of money for the cause, as well as by his extreme subtlety, to 
concentrate the real authority in his hands. To other districts they 
sent governors whom they could best trust for courage and fidelity to 
their cause. Almost all, if not all, these leaders, were of the more 
moderate, at least not of the Zealot party. The command of Galilee, 
the province on which the storm would first break, was intrusted to 
Joseph, the son of Mathias, better known to us as Josephus, the his- 
torian of the war. As long as the passes and hill fortresses of Galilee 
were defended, the southern region, and Jerusalem itself, might have 
time to organize their forces and fortify their strongholds. Josephus 
was a man eminently suited for the task before him. A priest of the 
most illustrious descent, distinguished alike for his ascetic piety and 
his Hebrew and Greek learning, he was appointed by the moderate 
party to defend Galilee and keep down the Zealots. His energy in the 
latter task won him the mortal enmity of John of Gischala, of whom 
we shall hear more in the progress of the narrative. The measures 



958 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of Josephus were prudent and conciliatory, yet by no means wanting 
in vigor. Although greatly embarrassed by the opposition of John 
of Gischala, and the intrigues of his superiors at Jerusalem, he put 
the province in a state of defence ; repressed the robbers who were 
numerous in it, and compelled them to take service in the army ; 
fortified and strengthened the principal places ; provided stores and 
provisions ; and raised an army of 100,000 men, armed them with 
weapons obtained from all quarters, and proceeded to introduce the 
Roman discipline. John of Gischala gave him great trouble, and the 
internal dissensions of the province were a serious obstacle to the suc- 
cess of Josephus, but he finally triumphed over them. 44 " 

During the year which elapsed between the defeat of Cestius and 
the advance of Vespasian, the insurgents in Jerusalem exerted them- 
selves actively to prepare for the war. The Zealots allowed no sign 
of apprehension, no manifestation of distrust, but punished all such 
displays with the dagger. Under the lead of Ananus, the chief priest, 
the walls were strengthened, military engines made, and stores of 
every kind laid in with the utmost care and expedition. The ravages 
of Simon of Gioras in the toparchy of Acrabatene, called for a decided 
display of the power of the rulers, for Simon, instead of attending to 
the defence of that district, had taken to plundering the people. Soon 
after the defeat of Cestius, the Jews endeavored to capture Ascalon, 
which was held by a weak force of Roman horse, but were terribly 
beaten with the loss of two of their leaders, Judas and Silas, and 
10,000 men. 

Early in the spring of 67, Vespasian appeared at Antioch at the 
head of his powerful army. Being joined by Agrippa with all his 
forces, he advanced to Ptolemais, where he was met by Titus with 
reinforcements. The whole army amounted to 60,000 regulars, about 
4000 of which were cavalry, besides followers of the camp, who were 
also accustomed to military service, and could fight on occasion. Three 
of the most distinguished legions of the Romans — the fifth, tenth, and 
fifteenth — accompanied Vespasian, and it seemed incredible that the 
insurgents should dream of opposing this magnificent army. 

Josephus describes the order of march of the Romans with the 
accuracy of an eye-witness. The van was preceded by the light-armed 
bodies and their archers, who were scattered over the plain to observe 
any unexpected attack of the enemy, and to examine all the woods or 

* The reader is referred to Milman's History of the Jews, from which the por- 
tion of this work is condensed, for a more comprehensive account of the extra- 
ordinary efforts of the Jewish commander. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 959 

thickets that might conceal an ambuscade. Then came part of the 
heavy-armed cavalry and infantry, followed by ten of each centenary, 
carrying the furniture and vessels of the camp. After these the 
pioneers, who were to straighten the winding roads, level the hills, or 
cut down the woods which might impede the march of the main army. 
Then came the baggage of the general and his officers, strongly 
guarded by cavalry. Next rode the general, with a picked troop of 
foot, horse, and lancers. After him the horse of his own legion, for 
to each legion there were 120 cavalry attached. Then the mules which 
carried the military engines and the besieging train. The lieutenant- 
generals, the commanders of cohorts, and the tribunes followed, each 
with a chosen band of men. Then the eagles, of which each legion 
had one. The standards were followed by the trumpeters. Behind 
came the phalanx itself in files of six deep. A centurion, whose busi- 
ness it was to keep order, brought up the rear. Behind them were 
the servants with the baggage on mules and other beasts of burden. 
After the Romans marched the mercenaries. A strong jearguard of 
light and heavy-armed foot, and many horse, closed the procession. 

Vespasian marched at once into Galilee, which he reduced with 
fire and sword. The principal event of this portion of the campaign 
was the siege of the strong mountain fortress of Jotapata, into which 
Josephus had thrown himself with the bravest of the Galilean war- 
riors. The Jews had believed this fortress to be inaccessible to such 
a force as that of the enemy, but in four days the Roman pioneers cut 
a practicable road right through the mountains, and Vespasian ap- 
proached the city and formed the siege. The besieged felt themselves 
cooped up like wild beasts in their lair ; they had no course left but 
to fight gallantly to the utmost; and their first consternation gave 
place to the fiercest valor and most stubborn resolution. From the 
15th of May to the 1st of July, the siege was conducted with an 
energy characteristic of the Romans, and the defence was masterly and 
heroic. Josephus, a priest and a scholar, utterly untrained to war, 
met every effort of the great soldier opposed to him with consummate 
bravery and skill. Stratagem was met with stratagem, skill with 
skill, and desperate valor with heroic courage. The besieged not only 
held their assailants at bay for nearly two months, but repeatedly 
sallied forth, broke up the Roman works, destroyed their engines, and 
even spread terror and destruction into their camp. 

For forty-seven days the heroic city had held out ; but now its end 
drew near. The inhabitants were worn out with watching and fa- 
tigue, with wounds and thirst. Their ranks were dreadfully thinned, 



960 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



and the over-wearied warrors had to fight all day and watch all night. 
A deserter found his way to the camp of Vespasian, and gave intelli- 
gence of the enfeebled state of the garrison, urging him to make an 
assault at the early dawn of the morning, when the sentinels were apt 
to be found sleeping on their posts. Vespasian suspected the traitor, 
for nothing had been more striking during the siege than the fidelity 
of the Jews to their cause. One man who had been taken had en- 
dured the most horrible torments, and though burnt in many parts 
of his body, had steadily refused to betray the state of the town, till 
at length he was crucified. Still the story bore marks of probability ; 
and Vespasian, thinking that no stratagem could inflict great injury 
on his powerful army, prepared for the assault. 

A thick morning mist enveloped the whole city, as at the appointed 
hour the Romans, with silent step, approached the walls. Titus was 

the first to mount, with 
Domitius Sabinus, a tri- 
bune, and a few soldiers 
of the fifteenth legion. 
They killed the senti- 
nels, and stole quietly 
down into the city. Sex- 
tus Cereal is, and Placi- 
dus, followed with their 
troops. The citadel was 
surprised; it was broad 

the catapult, a machine for throwing "ay, yet the besieged, m 
heavy darts. the liea vy sleep of fatigue, 

had not discovered that 
the enemy were within the walls ; and even now, those who awoke saw 
nothing through the dim and blinding mist. But by this time the 
whole army was within the gates, and the Jews were awakened to a 
horrible sense of their situation by the commencement of the slaughter. 
No quarter was given. The city was slippery with blood, and ghastly 
with corpses, for the Jews, overpowered, made no resistance. The 
Romans lost but one man. 

That day all were put to the sword who appeared in the streets or 
houses ; the next, the conquerors set themselves to search the caverns 
and underground passages, still slaughtering all the men, and sparing 
none but infants and women. Twelve hundred captives were taken. 
During the siege 40,000 men fell. Vespasian gave orders that the 
city should be razed to the ground, and all the defences burnt. 




SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 901 

Josephus, upon the capture of the city, took refuge in a cavern, 
from which he was drawn at length by a promise of safety from the 
Romans. Vespasian, who was himself wounded during the opera- 
tions, greatly admired the gallant defence of the Jewish leader, and 
not only spared his life, but attached him to his person during the 
war, using his services as a mediator, though to no purpose, and at 
length rewarded him with a grant of lands in Judsea, a pension, and 
the Roman franchise. Josephus owed much of this to a fortunate 
prophecy which he ventured to utter in the course of his first inter- 
view with his conqueror — that upon the death of Nero, Vespasian 
would succeed to the throne of the Caesars — and which was justified 
by the course of events. 

The other cities of Galilee were taken in rapid succession. Some 
submitting without resistance, and others — especially Gamala — emu- 
lating the example of Jotapata. Everywhere the law of retribution 
was enforced with merciless rigor, and finally the whole province was 
overrun and held down by the conquerors. Gischala was the last city 
in Galilee which offered any resistance ; and when John, the robber 
chief who commanded there, found its capture inevitable, he aban- 
doned the place, and made a desperate but successful retreat to Jeru- 
salem. 

Meantime, while Galilee was thus gallantly arresting the advance 
of the Romans, the leaders of the nation at Jerusalem, instead of seek- 
ing to send aid to their heroic brethren, were engaged in a fierce con- 
flict for the control of the Holy City. The arrival of John of Gischala 
gave new ferocity to this fatal strife. He was a man of the most in- 
sinuating address, and the most plausible and fluent eloquence. 
According to Josephus, he surpassed all men of high rank in craft 
and deceit, and was a monster of wickedness. He was at first a poor 
adventurer, his poverty stood in the way of his advancement, but by 
his readiness in falsehood, and by the singular skill with which he 
glazed over his falsehoods, so as to make all men believe them, he 
deceived his nearest friends ; affecting humanity, yet most sanguinary 
for the slightest advantage ; lofty in his ambition, but stooping to the 
basest means to obtain his end. He began as a single robber, but 
gradually collected a powerful and select banditti, for he would only 
admit men distinguished either for strength, bravery, or warlike skill. 
This band he brought with him to Jerusalem. By representing the 
Roman army as broken and enfeebled by the campaign in Galilee, 
and in no condition to besiege Jerusalem, John won over to himself 
a strong party in the city. 
61 



962 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

In the Holy City, as in every other place in Judaea, the populace 
was divided : the younger men were for war, and the older for a 
more prudent course. Between these two parties, a fierce warfare set 
in, and whenever the insurgents had time to breathe from the assaults 
of the Romans, they turned their swords against each other. The 
war and the peace factions not only distracted the public councils, 
but in every family, among the dearest and most intimate friends, this 
vital question created stern and bloody divisions. The unoffending 
and peaceful, who saw their houses burning and their families plun- 
dered, thought they could have nothing worse to apprehend from the 
conquest of the Romans than from the lawless violence of their own 
countrymen. In Jerusalem matters were especially bad. Besides 
the discontented and lawless class of the inhabitants, and the band of 
John of Gischala, numbers of the most desperate ruffians from the 
provinces stole into the city, where they formed a great and formidable 
troop. No effort was made to exclude them, as the rulers thought 
they would add to the strength of the garrison. The robbers were 
not long in spreading terror through Jerusalem. No one was safe 
from them. They plundered and massacred on all sides, sparing 
neither age nor rank ; and at length ventured to the extreme measure 
of electing a high-priest, after first deposing the rightful occupant of 
that office. They chose an ignorant clown named Phanius, whose 
blunders caused them much amusement, while the more religious 
priests wept bitterly at this profanation of the sacred office. This 
brought matters to a crisis ; and the people, under the lead of Ananus, 
the legitimate high-priest, attacked the robbers, and drove them, after 
a fierce conflict, into the Temple, before which Ananus posted a strong 
guard. 

In this state of affairs, the subtle and ambitious John of Gischala 
pursued his own dark course. By deceiving the party of Ananus, he 
managed to obtain admittance into the Temple, on the pretext of 
using his influence with the robbers to induce them to submit ; but 
once in the sacred edifice, he urged the Zealots to increased resistance, 
assuring them that it was the purpose of Ananus to admit the Romans 
to the city. The Zealots at once sent messengers to the Idumseans, 
beseeching their assistance, and 20,000 Idumaeans marched to Jerusa- 
lem. Ananus, though denying that he meant to surrender the city to 
the common enemy, refused to admit the new comers, who encamped 
that night without the walls, uncertain what course to pursue. A 
terrible tempest burst over the city at nightfall and raged all night. 
It was so fierce that the Idumseans, who were exposed to its fury, 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 963 

took it as a mark of Divine displeasure at their advance upon the Holy- 
City. It had the effect of inducing Ananus to relax his vigilance, 
and taking advantage of this, the Zealots sent out a party into the 
city, which opened the gates and admitted the Idumaeans. A fierce 
attack was made upon the city by the Idumaeans from the streets, and 
by the Zealots from the Temple. They were triumphant. The city 
was taken, 8500 of the people were slain, and the high-priests Ananus 
and Jesus, the son of Gamala, were seized and put to death. 

With the death of Ananus, all hopes of peace were extinguished, 
and from that night Josephus dates the ruin of Jerusalem. The 
vengeance of the Zealots and their new allies was not glutted by the 
blood of their principal enemies. They continued to massacre the 
people like a herd of animals. The lower orders they cut down 
wherever they met them ; those of higher rank, particularly the 
youth, were dragged to prison, that they might force them, by the 
fear of death, to embrace their party. No one complied ; all pre- 
ferred death to an alliance with such wicked conspirators. They 
were scourged and tortured, but still resolutely endured, and at length 
were relieved from their trials by the more merciful sword of the 
murderer. They were seized by day, and all the night these horrors 
went on ; at length their dead bodies were cast out into the streets to 
make room for more victims in the crowded prisons. Such was the 
terror of the people, that they neither dared to lament nor bury their 
miserable kindred ; but retired into the furthest part of their houses 
to weep, for fear the enemy should detect their sorrow ; for to deplore 
the dead was to deserve death. By night they scraped up a little 
dust with their hands, and strewed it over the bodies ; none but the 
most courageous would venture to do this by day. Thus perished 
12,000 of the noblest blood in Jerusalem. 

At length ashamed, or weary of this promiscuous massacre, the 
Zealots began to affect the forms of law, and set up tribunals of 
justice; but these, showing a desire to execute justice impartially, 
were broken up by force, and the work of blood was renewed. 
Finally the Idumaeans left the city in disgust, declaring that they 
had come to defend it against the Romans, and had been deceived by 
the Zealots into becoming accomplices in horrible murders. Before 
they left they opened the prisons, and released 2000 of the people, 
who instantly fled to Simon the son of Gioras, of whom we shall hear 
more. Their departure removed the greatest check upon the Robber- 
Zealots, and the work of blood went on more vigorously than before. 
Niger of Peraea, their most distinguished soldier, was seized, dragged 



964 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

through the streets and put to death, and after this they did not 
hesitate to murder any one who rendered himself obnoxious to them 
by reason of his wealth, his influence with the people, or his in- 
cautious speech. None but the very meanest in rank and fortune 
escaped their hauds. Many escaped from the city to the Romans ; 
yet some, such was the attachment to the very soil of Jerusalem, after 
they had got off, returned of their own accord, only in hopes that 
they might find burial in the Holy City. Hopes too often baffled ; 
for so hardened were all hearts become, that even the reverence for 
the sacred rite was extinct. Botli within the city, and in the villages, 
lay heaps of bodies rotting in the sun. To bury a relative was death. 
Such was the state of the people that the survivors envied the dead 
as released from suffering ; those who were tormented in prisons even 
thought them happy whose bodies were lying unburied in the streets. 
Vespasian was strongly urged by his generals to advance upon the 
city at once and put an end to the rebellion, but he sagaciously 
decided to suspend his attack, which would surely unite all parties, 
and let the contending factions tear each other to pieces. Meanwhile 
the Roman arms had swept Persea, as with the besom of destruction, 
and multitudes of the flying inhabitants were slaughtered and 
drowned at the fords of Jericho. The state of the Empire now 
engaged the attention of Vespasian, who was anxious to put an end 
to the war in Palestine, in order that his army might be at liberty 
for any further service. Moving southward, and devastating the 
country with fire and sword as he went, he reunited his forces at 
Jericho, and advanced toward Jerusalem. His march was suddenly 
checked by news from Rome, announcing the death of the Emperor 
Nero (a. d. 68). He retired with Titus to Alexandria to await the 
result of the civil war in Italy. He was proclaimed Emperor by his 
soldiers on the 1st of July, A. d. 69, and his generals at Rome secured 
his accession by the overthrow and death of Vitellius on the 21st of 
December. Vespasian did not sail from Alexandria until the follow- 
ing May, leaving Titus to finish the Jewish war, which had been 
suspended for nearly two years. 

Meanwhile the troubles in Jerusalem had grown worse. By the 
beginning of A. D. 70 three parties had been formed, and, though 
these held the city and the fortifications against their common enemy 
the Romans, they spared no occasion of making war upon each other. 
The Zealots themselves were divided into two parties : those of John 
of Gischala, and of Eleazar, which held the Temple and its courts 
and the Antonia — 8400 men ; that of Simon Bar-Gioras, whose head- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 965 

quarters were in the tower Phasaelus, and who held the Upper City, 
from the present Coenaculum to the Latin Convent, the Lower City 
in the valley, and the district where the old Acra had formerly stood, 
north of the Temple — 10,000 men, and 5000 Idumseans, in all a 
force of between 23,000 and 24,000 soldiers, trained in the civil 
encounters of the last two years to great skill and thorough reckless- 
ness. The numbers of the other inhabitants, swelled as they were by 
the strangers and pilgrims who flocked from the country to the Pass- 
over, it is extremely difficult to determine. Tacitus, doubtless from 
some Roman source, gives the whole at 600,000. Joseph us states 
that 1,100,000 perished during the siege, and that more than 40,000 
were allowed to depart into the country, in addition to an " immense 
number" sold to the army, and who of course form a proportion of 
the 97,000 "carried captive during the whole war." We may, 
therefore, take Josephus's computation of the numbers at about 
1,200,000. Even the smaller of these numbers seems very greatly in 
excess, and it can hardly have exceeded 60,000 or 70,000. 

This state of the doomed city, — overcrowded with Jews, whose 
native passions and fervor, exasperated by the late war and exalted 
by the season of the Passover, doomed to be their last, were stimu- 
lated by the Zealots and inflamed by factions, — might well prepare 
those who knew the people for horrid deeds and more horrid suffer- 
ings. Pent up like sheep for the slaughter, they equally resembled 
wolves devouring one another. But the scene had a far more awful 
aspect, viewed in the light of ancient prophecy, as well as of Christ's 
recent denunciations of woe. As they who rejected him did but 
"fill up the measure of their fathers," so the warnings uttered to 
those fathers by Moses, by Solomon, and by the prophets, were but 
made more pointed and more instant in our Lord's discourse at his 
last departure from the Temple. But the special significance of the 
destruction of Jerusalem, as the fulfilment of the last great prophecy 
uttered under the Old Covenant, as the proof of his authority who 
gave it, and as " the removal of those things that are shaken that 
those things which cannot be shaken might remain," will be best 
considered in their place as the climax of the first stage in the history 
of the Christian Church. It need only be added here, that the 
Christians in Jerusalem were saved by their Lord's warning from 
the judicial blindness of their fellow-countrymen. Taking advantage 
of the space before the siege was formed by Titus they departed in a 
body to Pella, a village of the Decapolis, beyond Jordan, which be- 
came the seat of the " Church of Jerusalem " till Hadrian permitted 
their return. 



966 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

In the spring of A. d. 70, Titus reached Csesarea from Alexandria, 
and having reorganized his forces, marched at once upon Jerusalem. 
His army numbered 30,000 fighting men, and was in fine condition. 
He halted at Scopus, a ridge about a mile to the north of the city, 
having narrowly escaped capture himself during a reconnoissance of 
the vicinity. He disposed his army in three camps on their first 
arrival — the 12th and 15th legions on the ridge of Scopus; the 5th 
a little in the rear ; and the 10th on the top of the Mount of Olives, 
to guard the road to the Jordan valley. 

The Jewish leaders now temporarily laid aside their quarrels, and 
uniting their forces, endeavored to prevent the formation of the siege 
by a fierce sortie upon the 10th legion, which was engaged in work 
on its intrenchments, many of the legionaries being unarmed. The 
sortie came near resulting in the defeat of this famous corps, but after 
a sharp fight the Jews were driven back into the city, and the Roman 
outposts established. 

It was now the Passover, and although menaced by the enemy, the 
people of the crowded city flocked to the Temple to keep the Feast. 
They were admitted by Eleazar, and some of the adherents of John of 
Gischala entered with them, with their swords concealed under their 
cloaks. No sooner were they within, than they threw away their 
cloaks, and the peaceful multitude beheld the swords of these daunt- 
less ruffians flashing over their heads. The worshippers apprehended 
a general massacre. Eleazar's Zealots knew well on whom the attack 
was made. They leaped down and took refuge in the subterranean 
chambers of the Temple. The multitude cowered round the altar ; 
some were slain out of wantonness, or from private animosity — others 
trampled to death. At length, having glutted their vengeance upon 
those with whom they had no feud, v the partizans of John came to 
terms with their real enemies. They were permitted to come up out 
of their hiding places, even to resume their arms, and Eleazar was 
still left in command ; but one faction became thus absorbed in 
another, and two parties instead of three divided the city. 

Jerusalem at this period was fortified by three walls, in all those 
parts where it was not surrounded by abrupt and impassable ravines ; 
there it had but one. Each of the inner walls defended one of the 
several quarters into which the city was divided — or it might be 
almost said, one of the separate cities. Since the days in which 
David had built his capital on the rugged heights of Zion, great alter- 
ations had taken place in Jerusalem. That eminence was still occu- 
pied by the Upper City ; but in addition, first the hill of Moriah had 



SECULAR HISTORY OP THE JEWS. 967 

been taken in, on which the Temple stood ; then Acra, which was 
originally, although a part of the same ridge, separated by a deep 
chasm from Moriah. This chasm was almost entirely filled up and 
the top of Acra levelled by the Asmonsean princes, so that Acra and 
Moriah were united, though on the side of Acra the Temple presented 
a formidable front, connected by several bridges or causeways with 
the Lower City. To the south, the height of Zion, the Upper City, 
was separated from the Lower by a ravine, which ran right through 
Jerusalem, called the Tyropaeon, or the Valley of the Cheesemongers ; 
at the edge of this ravine, on both sides, the streets suddenly broke 
off, though the walls in some places must have crossed it, and it was 
bridged in more than one part. To the north extended a considerable 
suburb called Bezetha, or the new city. 

The capture of the first wall only opened Bezetha; the fortifi- 
cations of the northern part of the Temple, the Antonia, and the 
second wall still defended the other quarters. The second wall 
forced, only a part of the Lower City was won ; the strong rock-built 
citadel of Antonia and the Temple, on one hand, and Zion on the 
other, were not in the least weakened. The whole circuit of these 
walls was guarded with towers, built of the same solid masonry with 
the rest of the walls. They were 35 feet broad, and 35 high ; but 
above this height were lofty chambers, and above those again, upper 
rooms, and large tanks to receive the rain water. 

Broad flights of steps led up to them. Ninety of these towers stood 
in the first wall, 14 in the second, and 60 in the third. The intervals 
between the towers were about 350 feet. The whole circuit of the 
city, according to Josephus, was 33 stadia — rather more than 4 miles. 
The most magnificent of all these towers was that of Psephina, oppo- 
site to which Titus encamped. It w r as 122 J feet high, and com- 
manded a noble view of the whole territory of Judsea, to the border 
of Arabia, and to the sea ; it was an octagon. Answering to this 
was the tower of Hippicus ; and, following the old wall, stood those of 
Mariamne and Phasaelis, built by Herod, and named after his brother 
and friend and his wife. These were stupendous even as works of 
Herod. Hippicus was square ; 43} feet each way. The whole height 
of the tower was 140 feet — the tower itself 52 J, a deep tank or reser- 
voir 35, two stories of chambers 43f, battlements and pinnacles 8}. 
Phasaelis was a solid square of 70 feet. It was surrounded by a 
portico 17 J feet high, defended by breastworks and bulwarks; and 
above the portico was another tower, divided into lofty chambers and 
baths. It was more richly ornamented than the rest with battlements 



968 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

and pinnacles, so that its whole height was above 167 feet. It looked 
from a distance like the tall Pharos of Alexandria. This stately 
palace was the dwelling of Simon. Mariamne, though not equal in 
elevation, was more luxuriously fitted up ; it was built of solid wall 
35 feet high, and the same width : on the whole, with the upper 
chambers, it was about 76} feet high. These lofty towers appeared 
still higher from their situation. They stood upon the old wall, 
which ran along the steep brow of Zion. The masonry was perfect : 
they were built of white marble, cut in blocks 35 feet long, 17 J wide, 
8 J high, so fitted that the towers seemed hewn out of the solid quarry. 

The fortress of Antonia stood alone, on a precipitous rock near 90 
feet high, at the northwest corner of the Temple. It was likewise a 
work of Herod. The whole face of the rock was fronted with 
smooth stone for ornament, and to make the ascent so slippery as to 
be impracticable ; round the top of the rock there was first a low 
wall, rather more than 5 feet high. The fortress was 70 feet in 
height. It had every luxury and convenience of a sumptuous palace, 
or even of a city ; spacious halls, courts, and baths. It appeared like 
a vast square tower, with four other towers at each corner ; three of 
them between 80 and 90 feet high : that at the corner next to the 
Temple above 120. From this the whole Temple might be seen, and 
broad flights of steps led down into the northern and western cloisters 
or porticos of the Temple, in which, during the Roman government, 
their guard was stationed. 

High above the whole city rose the Temple, uniting the command- 
ing strength of a citadel with the splendor of a sacred edifice. Ac- 
cording to Josephus, the esplanade on which it stood had been consid- 
erably enlarged by the accumulation of fresh soil, since the days of 
Solomon, particularly on the north side. It now covered a square of 
a furlong each side. Solomon had faced the precipitous sides of the 
rock on the east, and perhaps the south, with huge blocks of stoue ; 
the other sides likewise had been built up with perpendicular walls 
to an equal height. These walls in no part were lower than 300 
cubits (525 feet) ; but their whole height was not seen, excepting on 
the eastern and perhaps the southern sides, as the earth was heaped 
up to the level of the streets of the city. Some of the stones employed 
in this work were of the size of 70 feet probably in length. At a 
distance, the whole Temple looked literally like "a mount of snow, 
fretted with golden pinnacles." 

Such was the strength of the city which Titus surveyed from the 
surrounding heights, if with something like awe at its impregnable 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 969 

strength, with still greater wonder and admiration at its unexampled 
magnificence. 

In the meantime Titus was cautiously advancing his approaches. 
The army was well furnished with artillery and machines of the latest 
and most approved invention. The first operation was to clear the 
ground between Scopus and the north wall of the city, fell the tim- 
ber, destroy the fences of the gardens which fringed the wall, and 
level the rocky protuberances. This occupied four days. After it 
was done, the three legions were marched forward from Scopus, and 
encamped off the northwest corner of the walls, stretching from the 
Tower Psephinus to opposite Hippicus. The first step was to get 
possession of the outer wall. The point of attack chosen was in 
Simon's portion of the city, at a low and comparatively weak place 
near the monument of John Hyrcanus, close to the junction of the 
three walls, and where the Upper 
City came to a level with the sur- 
rounding ground. Round this 
spot the three legions erected banks, 
from which they opened batteries, 
pushing up the rams and other en- 
gines of attack to the foot of the 
wall. One of the rams, more pow- 
erful than the rest, went among 
the Jews by the sobriquet of Nikon, 
the conqueror. Three large towers, 
75 feet high, were also erected, battering-ram and tower 
overtopping the wall. Meantime, 

from their camp on the Mount of Olives, the 10th legion opened 
fire on the Temple and the east side of the city. They had the heavi- 
est balistse, and did great damage. Simon and his men did not suf- 
fer these works to go on without molestation. The catapults — both 
those taken from Cestius, and those found in Antonia — were set up on 
the wall, and constant desperate sallies were made, some of which 
inflicted great damage upon the Romans. At last the Jews began to 
tire of their fruitless assaults. They saw that the wall must fall, and, 
as they had done during Nebuchadnezzar's siege, they left their posts 
at night and went home. A breach was made by the redoubtable 
Nikon on the 7th Artemesius (about April 15th) ; and here the 
Romans entered, driving the Jews before them to the second wall. 
A great length of the wall was then broken down ; such parts of 
Bezetha as had escaped destruction by Cestius were levelled, and a 




970 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

new camp was formed on the spot formerly occupied by the Assyrians, 
and still known as the Assyrian camp. 

This was a great step in advance. Titus now lay with the second 
wall of the city close to him on his right, while before him at no con- 
siderable distance rose Antonia and the Temple, with no obstacle in 
the interval to his attack. Still, however, he preferred, before advan- 
cing, to get possession of the second wall, and the neighborhood of 
John's monument was again chosen. Simon was no less reckless in 
assault, and no less fertile in stratagem than before, but, notwith- 
standing all his efforts, in five days a breach was again effected. The 
district into which the Romans had now penetrated was the great 
Valley which lay between the two main hills of the city, occupied 
then, as it is still, by an intricate mass of narrow and tortuous lanes, 
and containing the markets of the city — no doubt very like the present 
bazaars. Titus's breach was where the wool, cloth, and brass bazaars 
came up to the wall. This district was held by the Jews with the 
greatest tenacity. Knowing as they did every turn of the lanes and 
alleys, they had an immense advantage over the Romans, and it was 
only after four days' incessant fighting, much loss, and one thorough 
repulse, that the Romans were able to make good their position. How- 
ever, at last Simon was obliged to retreat, and then Titus demolished 
the wall. This was the second step in the siege. 

Meantime some shots had been exchanged in the direction of the 
Antonia, but no serious attack was made. Before beginning there in 
earnest, Titus resolved to give his troops a few days' rest, and the 
Jews a short opportunity for reflection. He therefore called in the 
10th legion from the Mount of Olives, and held an inspection of the 
whole army on the ground north of the Temple — full in view of both 
the Temple and the Upper City, every wall and house in which were 
crowded with spectators. But the opportunity was thrown away upon 
the Jews, and after four days orders were given to recommence the 
attack. Hitherto the assault had been almost entirely on the city : it 
was now to be simultaneous on city and Temple. Accordingly, two 
pairs of large batteries were constructed, the one pair in front of An- 
tonia ; the other at the old point of attack, the monument of John 
Hyrcanus. The first pair was erected by the 5th and 12th legions, 
and was near the pool Struthius, probably the present Birket Israil, 
by the St. Stephen's gate; the second by the 10th and 15th, at the 
pool called the Almond pool — possibly that now known as the pool of 
Hezekiah — and near the high-priest's monument. These banks seem 
to have been constructed of timber and fascines, to which the Romans 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 9U 

must have been driven by the scarcity of earth. They absorbed the 
incessant labor of seventeen days, and were completed on the 29th 
Artemisius (about May 7). John in the meantime had not been idle ; 
he had employed the seventeen days' respite in driving mines, through 
the solid limestone of the hill, from within the fortress to below the 
banks. The mines were formed with timber roofs and supports. When 
the banks were quite complete, and the engines placed upon them, the 
timber of the galleries was fired, the superincumbent ground gave 
way, and the labor of the Romans was totally destroyed. At the 
other point Simon had maintained a resistance with all his former 
intrepidity, and more than his former success. He had now greatly 
increased the number of his machines, and his people were much more 
expert in handling them than before, so that he was able to impede 
materially the progress of the works. And when they were completed, 
and the battering-rams had begun to make a sensible impression on 
the wall, he made a furious assault on them, and succeeded in firing 
the rams, seriously damaging the other engines, and destroying the 
banks. 

It now became plain to Titus that some other measures for the re- 
duction of the place must be adopted. It would appear that hitherto 
the southern and western parts of the city had not been invested, and 
on that side a certain amount of communication was kept up with the 
country, which, unless stopped, might prolong the siege indefinitely. 
The number who thus escaped is stated by Josephus at more than 500 
a day. A council of war was therefore held, and it was resolved to 
encompass the whole place with a wall, and then recommence the 
assault. TKe wall began at the Roman camp — a spot probably out- 
side the modern north wall, between the Damascus gate and the north- 
east corner ; from thence it went to the lower part of Bezetha, about 
St. Stephen's gate ; then across Keclron to the Mount of Olives ; thence 
south by a rock called the " Pigeon's Rock " — possibly the modern 
" Tombs of the Prophets " — to the Mount of Offence. It then turned 
to the west; again dipped into the Kedron, ascended the Mount of 
Evil Counsel, and so kept on the upper side of the ravine to a village 
called Beth-Erebenthi, whence it ran outside of Herod's monument to 
its starting point at the camp. Its entire length was thirty-nine fur- 
longs — very near five miles; and it contained thirteen stations, or 
guard-houses. The whole strength of the army was employed on the 
work, and it was completed in the short space of three days. The 
siege was then vigorously pressed, the north attack was relinquished, 
and the whole force concentrated on the Autonia. Four new banks 



972 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

of greater size than before were constructed ; and, as all the timber in 
the neighborhood had been already cut down, the materials had to be 
procured from a distance of eleven miles. Twenty-one days were 
occupied in completing the banks. At length, on the 1st Panemus or 
Tamuz (about June 7), the fire from the banks commenced, under 
cover of which the rams were set to work, and that night a part of 
the wall fell at a spot where the foundations had been weakened by 
the mines employed against the former attacks. Still, this was but an 
outwork, and between it and the fortress itself a new wall was dis- 
covered, which John had taken the precaution to build. At length, 
after two desperate attempts, this wall and that of the inner fortress 
were scaled by a bold surprise; and on the 5th Panemus (June 11) 
the Antonia was in the hands of the Romans. Another week was 
occupied in breaking down the outer walls of the fortress for the pas- 
sage of the machines, and a further delay took place in erecting new 
banks on the fresh level for the bombardment and battery of the 
Temple. 

During all this time the famine, which had set in in the Holy City 
soon after the commencement of the siege, increased. The woes of 
the unhappy people were fearful beyond comparison, and the despera- 
tion of the insurgents increased daily. No grain was exposed for 
public sale ; they forced open and searched the houses, and, if they 
found any, they punished the owners for their refusal ; if none was 
discovered, they tortured them with greater cruelty for concealing it 
with such care. The looks of the wretched beings were the marks 
by which they judged whether they had any secret store or not. Those 
who were hale and strong were condemned as guilty of concealment ; 
the plunderers passed by only the pale and emaciated. The wealthy 
secretly sold their whole property for a measure of wheat, the poorer 
for one of barley, and, shrouding themselves in the darkest recesses of 
their houses, devoured it underground ; others made bread, snatched 
it half baked from the embers, and tore it with their teeth. Every 
kind feeling — love, respect, natural affection — were extinct, through 
the all-absorbing want. Wives would snatch the last morsel of food 
from husbands, children from parents, mothers from children ; they 
would intercept even their own milk from the lips of their pining 
babes. The most scanty supply of food was consumed in terror and 
peril. The marauders were always prowling about. If a house was 
closed, they supposed that eating was going on ; they burst in and 
squeezed the crumbs from the mouths and throats of those who had 
swallowed them. Old men were scourged till they surrendered the 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 9T3 

food to which their hands clung desperately, and even were dragged 
about by the hair, till they gave up what they had. Children were 
seized as they hung upon the miserable morsels they had got, whirled 
around and dashed upon the pavement. Those who anticipated the 
plunderers by swallowing every atom were treated still more cruelly, 
as if they had wronged those who came to rob them. Tortures, which 
cannot be related with decency, were employed against those who had 
a loaf or a handful of barley. Nor did their own necessities excuse 
these cruelties ; sometimes it was done by those who had abundance 
of food with a deliberate design of husbanding their own resources. 
If any wretches crept out near the Roman posts to pick up some 
miserable herbs or vegetables, they were plundered on their return, 
and their remonstrances punished with death. 

These were the sufferings of the lower orders. The higher classes 
fared no better. They were carried before the tyrants themselves. 
Some were accused of treasonable correspondence with the Romans ; 
others with an intention to desert. He that was plundered by Simon 
was sent to John ; he that had been stripped by John was made over 
to Simon ; so by turns they, as it were, shared the bodies and drained 
the blood of the citizens. Their ambition made them enemies ; their 
common crimes made them friends. They were jealous if either de- 
prived the other of his share in some flagrant cruelty, and complained 
of being wronged if excluded from some atrocious iniquity. 

Nor were the Romans more merciful. Many poor wretches, some 
few of them insurgents, but mostly the poorest of the people, would 
steal down the ravines by night to pick up whatever might serve for 
food. They would, most of them, have willingly deserted, but hesi- 
tated to leave their wives and children to be murdered. For these 
Titus laid men in ambush ; when attacked, they defended themselves ; 
as a punishment, they were scourged, tortured, and crucified ; and in 
the morning sometimes 500, sometimes more, of these miserable beings 
were seen writhing on crosses before the walls. This was done because 
it was thought unsafe to let them escape, and to terrify the rest. This 
spectacle checked desertion almost entirely. 

After the capture of the second wall matters grew worse. Whole 
families lay perishing with hunger. The houses were full of dying 
women and children, the streets with old men gasping out their last 
breath. The bodies remained unburied, for either the emaciated rela- 
tives had not the strength for their melancholy duty, or, in the uncer- 
tainty of their own lives, neglected every office of kindness or charity. 
Some, indeed, died in the act of burying their friends ; others crept 



974 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 






into the cemeteries, lay down on a bier, and expired. There was no 
sorrow, no wailing ; they had not strength to moan ; they sat with dry 
eyes, and mouths drawn up into a kind of bitter smile. Those who 
were more hardy looked with envy on those who had already breathed 
their last. Many died with their eyes still fixed steadily on the Temple. 
There was a deep and heavy silence over the whole city, broken only 
by the robbers as they forced open houses to plunder the dead, and in 
licentious sport dragged away the last decent covering from their 
limbs ; they would even try the edge of their swords on the dead. 
The soldiers, dreading the stench of the corpses, at first ordered them 
to be buried at the expense of the public treasury ; as they grew more 
numerous, they were thrown over the walls into the ravines below. • 

Titus, as he went his rounds, saw these bodies rotting, and the 
ground reeking with gore wherever he trod; he groaned, lifted up his 
hands to heaven, and called God to witness that this was not his work. 

Meanwhile the robbers cruelly murdered the high-priest and six- 
teen members of the Sanhedrim, and distributed the sacred oil and 
wine to the famishing people. 

In the meantime the Romans pressed the siege of the Temple with 
vigor. The most desperate hand-to-hand encounters took place, some 
in the passages from the Antonia to the cloisters, some in the cloisters 
themselves, the Romans endeavoring to force their way in, the Jews 
preventing them. But the Romans gradually gained ground. First 
the western, and then the whole of the northern external cloister was 
burned (27th and 28th Panemus), and then the wall enclosing the 
court of Israel, and the holy house itself. In the interval, on the 17th 
Panemus, the daily sacrifice had failed, owing to the want of officiating 
priests ; a circumstance which had greatly distressed the people, and 
was taken advantage of by Titus to make a further though fruitless 
invitation to surrender. He protested against the defilement of the 
sacred edifice, and promised that if the Jews would come forth and 
fight in any other place no Roman should violate the sanctity of the 
Temple. This offer was also rejected. 

All this while the famine continued its dreadful ravages. Men 
would fight even the dearest friends for the most miserable morsel. 
The very dead were searched, as though they might conceal some 
scrap of food. Even the robbers began to suffer severely ; they went 
prowling about like mad dogs, or reeling, like drunken men, from 
weakness, and entered and searched the same houses twice or thrice in 
the same hour. The most loathsome and disgusting food sold at an 
enormous price. They gnawed their belts, shoes, and even the leathern 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 975 

coats of their shields ; chopped hay and shoots of trees sold at high 
prices. Yet, what were all these horrors to that which followed ? 
There was a woman of Persea, from the village of Bethezob, Mary, the 
daughter of Eleazar. She possessed considerable wealth when she 
took refuge in the city. Day after day she had been plundered by 
the robbers, whom she had provoked by her bitter imprecations. No 
one, however, would mercifully put an end to her misery ; and her 
mind maddened with wrong, her body preyed upon by famine, she 
wildly resolved upon an expedient which might gratify at once her 
vengeance and her hunger. She had an infant that was vainly en- 
deavoring to obtain some moisture from her dry bosom ; she seized it, 
cooked it, ate one-half, and set the other aside. The smoke and the 
smell of food quickly reached the robbers ; they forced her door, and 
with horrible threats commanded her to give up what she had been 
feasting on. She replied, with appalling indifference, that she had 
carefully, reserved for her good friends a part of her meal. She un- 
covered the remains of her child ! The savage men stood speechless, 
at which she cried out with a shrill voice, " Eat, for I have eaten ; be 
ye not more delicate than a woman, more tender-hearted than a mother ; 
or, if ye are too religious to touch such food — I have eaten half already 
— leave me the rest." They retired, pale and trembling with horror. 
The story spread rapidly through the city, and reached the Roman 
camp, where it was first heard with incredulity, afterwards with the 
deepest commiseration. 

The destruction of the outer cloisters had left the Romans masters of 
the great court of the Gentiles; on the 8th of August, the engines 
began to batter the western gate of the inner court. For six previous 
days the largest and most powerful of the battering rams had played 
upon the wall ; the enormous size and compactness of the stones had 
resisted all its efforts. Other troops at the same time endeavored to 
undermine the northern gate, but with no better success ; nothing, 
therefore, remained but to fix the scaling ladders and storm the clois- 
ters. The assault was repulsed by the Jews, who captured several of 
the eagles. Driven on all hands from the top of the wall, Titus com- 
manded fire to be set to the gates. 

No sooner had the blazing torches been applied to the gates than 
the silver plates heated, the wood kindled, the whole flamed up and 
spread rapidly to the cloisters. Like wild beasts environed in a 
burning forest, the Jews saw the awful circle of fire hem them in on 
every side; their courage sank, they stood gasping, motionless and 
helpelss ; not a hand endeavored to quench the flames, or stop the 



976 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

silent progress of the conflagration. Yet still fierce thoughts of despe- 
rate vengeance were brooding in their hearts. Through the whole 
night and the next day the fire went on consuming the whole range 
of cloisters. Titus at length gave orders that it should be extin- 
guished, and the way through the gates levelled for the advance of 
the legionaries ; and, in a council of war, it was resolved to save the 
Temple from destruction, if possible. But higher counsels had other- 
wise decreed, and the Temple of Jerusalem was to be forever oblite- 
rated from the face of the earth. The whole of the first day after the 
fire began, the Jews, from exhaustion and consternation, remained 
entirely inactive. The next, they made a furious sally from the 
eastern gate against the guards who were posted in the outer court. 
Titus himself was obliged to head his troops, and the sortie was with 
difficulty repelled. 

It was the 10th of August, the day already darkened in the Jewish 
calendar by the destruction of the former Temple by the. King of 
Babylon ; that day was almost passed. Titus withdrew again into 
the Antonia, intending the next morning to make a general assault. 
The quiet summer evening came on; the setting sun shone for the 
last time on the snow white walls and glistening pinnacles of the 
Temple roof. Titus had retired to rest ; when suddenly a wild and 
terrible cry was heard, and a man came rushing in, announcing that 
the Temple was on fire. Some of the besieged, notwithstanding their 
repulse in the morning, had sallied out to attack the men who were 
busily employed in extinguishing the fires about the cloisters. The 
Romans not merely drove them back, but, entering the sacred space 
with them, forced their way to the door of the Temple. A soldier, 
without orders, mounting on the shoulders of one of his comrades, 
threw a blazing brand into a small gilded door on the north side o£ 
the chambers, in the outer building or porch. The flames sprang up 
at once. The Jews uttered one simultaneous shriek, and grasped 
their swords with a furious determination of revenging and perishing 
in the ruins of the Temple. Titus rushed down with the utmost 
speed ; he shouted, he made signs to his soldiers to quench the fire ; 
his voice was drowned, and his signs unnoticed, in the blind con- 
fusion. The legionaries either could not or would not hear; they 
rushed on, trampling each other down in their furious haste, or, 
stumbling over the crumbling ruins, perished with the enemy. Each 
exhorted the other, and each hurled his blazing brand into the inner 
part of the edifice, and then hurried to his work of carnage. The 
unarmed and defenceless people were slain in thousands ; they lay 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 977 

heaped like sacrifices, round the altar; the steps of the Temple rail 
with streams of blood, which washed down the bodies that lay about. 

Titus found it impossible to check the rage of the soldiery ; he 
entered with his officers, and surveyed the interior of the sacred 
edifice. The splendor filled them with wonder; and as the flames 
had not yet penetrated to the Holy Place, he made a last effort to 
save it, and springing forth, again exhorted the soldiers to stay the 
progress of the conflagration. The centurion Liberalis endeavored to 
force obedience with his staff of office; but even respect for the 
Emperor gave way to the furious animosity against the Jews, to the 
fierce excitement of battle, and to the insatiable hope of plunder. 
The soldiers saw ^e very thing around them radiant with gold, which 
shone dazzlingly in the wild light of the flames ; they supposed that 
incalculable treasures were laid up in the Sanctuary. A soldier, 
unperceived, thrust a lighted torch between the hinges of the door ; 
the whole building was in flames in an instant. The blinding smoke 
and fire forced the officers to retreat, and the noble edifice was left to 
its fate. 

It was an appalling spectacle to the Romans : what was it to the 
Jews? The whole summit of the hill which commanded the city 
blazed like a volcano. One after another the buildings fell in with a 
tremendous crash, and were swallowed up in the fiery abyss. The 
roofs of cedar were like sheets of flame; the gilded pinnacles shone 
like pikes of red light; the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame 
and smoke. The neighboring hills were lighted up; and dark groups 
of people were seen watching in horrible anxiety the progress of the 
destruction ; the walls and heights of the Upper City were crowded 
with faces, some pale with the agony of despair, others scowling 
unavailing vengeance. The shouts of the Roman soldiery as they 
ran to and fro, and the howlings of the insurgents who were perish- 
ing in the flames, mingled with the roaring of the conflagration 
and the thundering sound of falling timbers. The echoes of the 
mountains replied or brought back the shrieks of the people on the 
heights: all along the walls resounded screams and wailings: men 
who were expiring with famine rallied their remaining strength to 
utter a cry of anguish and desolation. 

The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the spectacle 
without. Men and women, old and young, insurgents and priests, 
those who fought and those who entreated mercv, were hewn down 
in indiscriminate carnage. The number of the slain exceeded that 
of the slayers. The legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to 
62 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 979 

carry on the work of extermination. John, at the head of some of 
his troops, cut his way through, first into the outer court of the 
Temple, and afterward into the Upper City. Some of the priests 
upon the roof wrenched off the gilded spikes, with their sockets of 
lead, and used them as missiles against the Romans below. After- 
ward they fled to a part of the wall, about fourteen feet wide, where 
they were summoned to surrender; but two of them, Mair, son of 
Belga, and Joseph, son of Dalai, plunged headlong into the flames. 

No part escaped the fury of the Romans. The treasuries with all 
their wealth of money, jewels, and costly robes, — the plunder which 
the Zealots had laid up, — were totally destroyed. Nothing remained 
but a small part of the outer cloister, in which about 6000 unarmed 
and defenceless people, with women and children, had taken refuge. 
These poor wretches, like multitudes of others, had been led up to 
the Temple by a false prophet, who had proclaimed that God com- 
manded all the Jews to go up to the Temple, where he would display 
his Almighty power to save his people. For during all this time 
false prophets, suborned by the Zealots, had kept the people in a 
state of feverish excitement, looking every moment for the appearance 
of the Great Deliverer. The soldiers set fire to the building ; every 
soul perished. 

The whole Roman army entered the sacred precincts, and pitched 
their standards among the smoking ruins ; they offered sacrifice for 
the victory, and with loud acclamations saluted Titus as Emperor. 
Their joy was not a little enhanced by the value of the plunder they 
had obtained, which was so great that gold fell in Syria to one half 
its former value. The few priests were still on the top of the walls 
to which they had escaped. A boy emaciated with hunger came 
down on a promise that his life should be spared. He immediately 
ran to drink, filled his vessel, and hurried away to his comrades with 
such speed that the soldiers could not catch him. Five days after- 
ward the priests were starved into surrender; they entreated for 
their lives, but Titus answered that the hour of mercy "was past; they 
were led to execution. 

Much as had been gained, the work was not finished. The Upper 
City, higher than Moriah, enclosed by the original wall of David and 
Solomon, and on all sides precipitous except at the north, where it 
was defended by the wall and towers of Herod, was still to be taken. 
Titus tried a parley first through Josephus, and then in person, he 
standing on the east end of the bridge between the Temple and the 
Upper City, and John and Simon on the west end. His terms, how- 



980 



HISTORY OF THE. BIBLE 



ever, were rejected, and no alternative was left him but to force on 
the siege. The whole of the low part of the town — the crowded lanes, 
of which we have so often heard — was burned, in the teeth of a frantic 
resistance from the Zealots, together with the council-house, the re- 
pository of the records (doubtless occupied by Simon since its former 
destruction), and the palace of Helena, which were situated in this 
quarter — the suburb of Ophel under the south wall of the Temple, 
and the houses as far as Siloam on the lower slopes of the Temple 
mount. 

It took 18 days to erect the necessary works for the siege ; the four 
legions were once more stationed at the west or northwest corner, 
where Herod's palace abutted on the wall, and where the three mag- 
nificent and impregnable towers of Hippicus, Phasaelis, and Mari- 
amne rose conspicuous. This was the main attack. Opposite the 
Temple, the precipitous nature of the slopes of the Upper City ren- 
dered it unlikely that any serious attempt would be made by the 
Jews, and this part accordingly, between the bridge and the Xystns, 
was left to the auxiliaries. The attack was commenced on the 7th of 
Gorpissus (about Sept. 11), and by the next day a breach was made 
in the wall, and the Romans at last entered the city. During the 
attack John and Simon appear to have stationed themselves in the 
towers just alluded to; and had they remained there, they would 
probably have been able to make terms, as the towers were considered 
impregnable. But on the first signs of the breach, they took flight, 
and traversing the city, descended into the valley of Hinnom below 
Siloam, and endeavored to force the wall of circumvallation and so 
make their escape. On being repulsed there, they took refuge apart in 
some of the subterraneous caverns or sewers of the city. John shortly 
after surrended himself; but Simon held out for several weeks, and 
did not make his appearance until after Titus had quitted the city. 
They were both reserved for the triumph at Rome. 

The city being taken, such parts as had escaped the former confla- 
grations were burned, and the whole of both city and Temple was 
ordered to be demolished, excepting the west wall of the Upper City, 
and Herod's three great towers at the northwest corner, which were 
left standing as memorials of the massive nature of the fortifications. 

Of the Jews, the aged and infirm were killed ; the children under 
seventeen were sold as slaves ; the rest were sent, some to the Egyp- 
tian mines, some to the provincial amphitheatres, and some to grace 
the triumph of the Conqueror. Titus then departed, leaving the 10th 
legion, under the command of Terentius Rufus, to carry out the work 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 981 




COIN, STRUCK BY THE EMPEROR VESPASIAN, COMMEMORATING THE 

CONQUEST OF JUDJEA. 

of demolition. Of this Joseph us assures us, that " the whole was so 
thoroughly levelled and dug up, that no one visiting it would believe 
that it had ever been inhabited." During the whole siege the num- 
ber killed was 1,100,000, that of prisoners 97,000. The number of 
those who lost their lives or their liberty in this exterminating war, 
and its previous massacres, stands as follows : killed, 1,356,460 ; 
prisoners, 101,700. 

It might have been expected that the fall of Jerusalem would nave 
utterly crushed the resistance of the Jews ; but when Lucilius Bassus 
came to take the command of the Roman army after the departure of 
Titus, he found three strong fortresses still in arms — Herodion, 
Machserus, and Masada. Herodion immediately capitulated, but 
Machserus, beyond the Jordan, relying on its impregnable position, 
defied all the power of the enemy. It was at once besieged, and 
made a gallant defence, but the citadel was at length surrendered in 
order to save the life of Eleazar, the most valiant champion of the 
Jews, whom the Romans had captured and were about to crucify. 
Masada was still stronger, but it was finally reduced to such extremi- 
ties that the garrison, seeing further resistance hopeless, determined to 
perish rather than fall into the hands of the Romans. They embraced 
their wives and children, and then slew them with their own hands. 
Ten men were then chosen by lot as executioners, and the rest, one 
after another, still clasping the lifeless bodies of their wives and chil- 
dren, held up their necks to the blow. The ten then cast lots ; nine 
fell by each other's hands; the last man, after he had carefully 
searched whether there was any more work for him to do, seized a 
lighted brand, set fire to the palace, and so, with resolute and unflinch- 
ing hand, drove the sword to his own heart. When the Romans 



982 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

entered the city, they found it tenantless, and not, without admiration, 
beheld this unexampled spectacle of self devotion. 

Thus terminated the final subjugation of Judaea. An edict of the 
Emperor to set up all the lands to sale had been received by Bassus. 
Vespasian did not pursue the usual policy of the Romans, in sharing 
the conquered territory among military colonists. He reserved to the 
Imperial treasury the whole profits of the sale. Only 800 veterans 
were settled at Emmaus, about 7 \ miles from Jerusalem. At the 
same time another edict was issued for the transfer of the annual capi- 
tation tax of two drachms, paid by the Jews in every quarter of the 
world, for the support of the Temple worship, to the fund for rebuild- 
ing the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which, as Gibbon observes, 
" by a remarkable coincidence, had been consumed by the flames of 
war about the same time with the Temple of Jerusalem." Thus the 
Holy Land was condemned to be portioned out to strangers, and the 
contributions for the worship of the God of Abraham levied for the 
maintenance of a heathen edifice. 

Yet though entirely extinguished in Judaea, the embers of the war 
still burned in more distant countries. Serious troubles ensued, in 
which the Jews suffered greatly, and were compelled, in self-defence, 
to seize their more violent brethren, and deliver them to the authori- 
ties for punishment. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS 



983 



CHAPTER XLV. 




seculab history of the jews. — {Concluded.) 

HE political existence of the Jewish nation was annihilated; it 
was never again recognized as one of the States or kingdoms 
of the world. Our history has lost, as it were, its centre 
of unity ; we have to trace a despised and obscure race in 
almost every region of the world, and connect, as we can, the 
loose and scattered details of their story. We are called back, indeed, 
for a short time to Palestine, to relate new scenes of revolt, ruin, and 
persecution. But in later periods we must wander over the whole 
face of the habitable globe to gather the scanty traditions which mark 
the existence of the Jewish people among the different States of Asia, 
Africa, Europe, and America — where, refusing to mingle their blood 
with any other race of mankind, they dwell in their distinct families 
and communities, and still maintain, though sometimes long and 
utterly unconnected with each other, the principle of national unity. 
Jews in the indelible features of the countenance, in mental character, 
in customs, usages, and laws, in language and literature, above all, 
in religion ; in the recollections of the past, and in hopes of the 
future; with ready pliancy they accommodate themselves to every 
soil, every climate, every gradation of manners and civilization, every 
form of government; with inflexible pertinacity they practice their 
ancient usages, circumcision, abstinence from unclean meats, eating no 
animal food which has not been killed by a Jew; rarely intermarry 
except among each other; observe the fasts and festivals of their 
Church ; and assemble, wherever they are numerous enough, or dare 
to do so, in their synagogues for public worship. Denizens every- 
where, rarely citizens; even in the countries in which they have been 
the longest and most firmly established, they appear, to a certain 
degree, strangers or sojourners; they dwell apart, though mingling 
with their neighbors in many of the affairs of life. For common pur- 
poses they adopt the language of the country they inhabit; but the 
Hebrew remains the national tongue, in which their holy books are 
read, and their religious services conducted, — it is their literary and 
sacred language, as Latin was that of the Christian Church in the 
Dark Ages. 



984 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

It was not long after the dissolution of the Jewish State that it 
revived again in appearance, under the form of two separate com- 
munities mostly dependent upon each other: one under a sovereignty 
purely spiritual, the other partly temporal and partly t spiritual, — but 
each comprehending all the Jewish families in the two great divisions 
of the world. At the head of the Jews on this side of the Euphrates 
appeared the Patriarch of the West ; the chief of the Mesopotamian 
community assumed the more striking but more temporal title of 
Resch-Glutha, or Prince of the Captivity. The origin of both these 
dignities, especially of the Western Patriarchate, is involved in much 
obscurity. It might have been expected that, from the character of 
the great war w T ith Rome, the people, as well as the state of the Jews, 
would have fallen into utter dissolution, or, at least, verged rapidly 
toward total extermination. Besides the loss of nearly a million and 
a half of lives during the war, the markets of the Roman empire were 
glutted with Jewish slaves. The amphitheatres were crowded with 
these miserable people, who were forced to slay each other, not singly, 
but in troops ; or fell in rapid succession, glad to escape the tyranny 
of their masters, by the more expeditious cruelty of the wild beasts. 
And in the unwholesome mines hundreds were doomed to toil for 
that wealth which was not to be their own. Yet still this inexhausti- 
ble race revived before long to offer new candidates for its inalienable 
inheritance of detestation and misery. Of the state of Palestine, 
indeed, immediately after the war, we have little accurate information. 
It is uncertain how far the enormous loss of life, and the numbers 
carried into captivity, drained the country of the Jewish population ; 
or how far the rescript of Vespasian, which offered the whole landed 
property of the province for sale, introduced a foreign race into the 
possession of the soil. The immense numbers engaged in the rebel- 
lion during the reign of Hadrian imply either that the country was 
not nearly exhausted, or that the reproduction in this still fertile 
region was extremely rapid. In fact, it must be remembered, that, 
whatever havoc was made by the sword of the conqueror, by distress, 
by famine, — whatever the consumption of human life in the amphi- 
theatre and the slave market, yet the ravage of the war was, after all, 
by no means universal in the province. Galilee, Judaea, and great 
part of Idumsea were wasted, and probably much depopulated ; but, 
excepting a few towns which made resistance, the populous regions 
and wealthy cities beyond the Jordan escaped the devastation. The 
dominions of King Agrippa were, for the most part, respected. 
Samaria submitted without resistance, as did most of the cities on the 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 985 

sea coast. Many of the rich and influential persons fell off from 
their more obstinate countrymen at the beginning or during the 
course of the war, were favorably received, and dismissed in safety 
by Titus. 

Long before the destruction of the nation, the real power had 
passed into the hands of the Rabbins, who were not only the theolo- 
gical teachers, but actually the political leaders of the people. 
Fidelity to the Law was the highest duty in the eyes of a Jew; but 
with such an intricate, low and imperfect calendar it was impossible 
that the masses of the people should have sufficient knowledge of 
their ancient institutes to observe them with the necessary fidelity. 
Therefore, it was but natural that the Rabbins, who possessed not 
only a thorough knowledge of the Law, but an ingenuity in explain- 
ing, a readiness in applying, a facility in quoting, and a clearness in 
offering solutions of the difficult passages of the written statutes, 
should acquire a power and influence over the people, which the 
public officials, acting under the orders of the hatred Romans, could 
not obtain. Moreover, by degrees another worship, independent of 
the Temple, had grown up before the destruction of Jerusalem — that 
of the synagogues. The nation still met in the great Temple, for the 
purpose of national expiation or thanksgiving. The individual went 
there to make his legal offerings, or to utter his prayers in the more 
immediate presence of the God of Abraham. But besides this he had 
his synagogue — where, in a smaller community, he assembled with 
a few of his neighbors, for divine worship, for prayer, and for in- 
struction in the Law. The latter more immediately, and gradually 
the former, fell entirely under the regulation of the learned interpreter 
of the Law, who, we may say, united the professions of the clergy and 
the Law, — the clergy considered as public instructors, for the law 
school and the synagogue were always closely connected, if they did 
not form parts of the same building. Thus there arose in the State 
the curious phenomenon of a spiritual supremacy, distinct from the 
priesthood ; for though many of these teachers were actually priests 
and Levites, they were not necessarily so, — a supremacy which exer- 
cised the most unlimited dominion, not formally recognized by the 
constitution, but not the less real and substantial ; for it was grounded 
in the general belief, ruled by the willing obedience of its subjects, 
and was rooted in the very minds and hearts of the people, till the 
maxim was openly promulgated, " The voice of the Rabbi, the voice 
of God." Thus, though the high-priest was still the formal and 
acknowledged head of the State, the redl influence passed away to 
these recognized interpreters of the divine word. 



986 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Hence the demolition of the Temple, the final cessation of the 
services, and the extinction of the priesthood, who did not survive 
their occupation, — events which, it might have been expected, would 
have been fatal to the national existence of the Jews as destroying the 
great bond of union, — produced scarcely any remarkable effect. The 
Levitical class had already been superseded as the judges and teachers 
of the people ; the synagogue, with its law school, and its grave and 
learned Rabbi, was prepared to supply the place of the Temple with 
its solemn rites, regular sacrifices, and hereditary priesthood. Hence 
the remnant of the people, amid the general wreck of their institu- 
tions, the extinction of the race, at least the abrogation of the office 
of high-priest, and even the defection of the representative of their 
late sovereign Agrippa, naturally looked round with eagerness to see 
if any of their learned Rabbins had escaped the ruin ; and directly 
they found them established in comparative security, willingly laid 
whatever allegiance they could dare to offer at their feet. Their 
Roman masters had no tribunal which they could approach ; the 
administration of their own law was indispensable ; hence, whether it 
assumed the^form of an oligarchy, or a monarchy, they submitted 
themselves with the most implicit confidence, and in the most un- 
doubting spirit, to the Rabbinical dominion. Thus Rabbinism be- 
came a new bond of national union, the great distinctive feature in 
the character of modern Judaism. 

Meanwhile the Romans, though they despised the Jews, watched 
them with jealous vigilance during the reign of Vespasian and his 
immediate successors. The ruins of Jerusalem were held by a garrison 
of 800 men to prevent the rebuilding of the city by its former inhabi- 
tants; and Vespasian commanded a strict search to be made of all 
who claimed descent from the house of David, in order to cut off, if 
possible, all hopes of the restoration of the royal house or of the Mes- 
siah, the confidence in whose speedy coming still burned with feverish 
excitement in the hearts of all faithful Israelites. The reign of Nerva 
gave them a brief interval of peace with the rest of the world ; and 
the payment of the tax for the Capitol ine Temple was not so rigo- 
rously exacted. In the reign of Trajan, either the oppressions of their 
enemies, or their own mutinous and fanatic disposition, drove them 
into revolt as frantic and disastrous as that which had laid their city 
and Temple in ashes. In Cyrenaica, Egypt, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia, 
they took up arms, and were crushed down again with remorseless 
severity. Their losses were immense ; their own traditions report that 
as many fell in this disastrous war as originally escaped from Egypt 
under Moses— 600,000 men. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 987 

In A. D. 117 Trajan died, and Hadrian ascended the throne. He 
had been employed in suppressing the rebellion just mentioned, and 
had witnessed the horrors perpetrated by the Jews in Cyprus, and he 
was by no means disposed to entertain sentiments favorable towards 
them. Soon after the beginning of his reign he inaugurated a series 
of severe measures. An edict was issued tantamount to the total sup- 
pression of Judaism ; it interdicted circumcision, the reading of the 
Law, and the observance of the Sabbath. 

During all this time the Jews had made no effort to recover their 
city. Three towers and part of the western wall alone remained of 
its strong fortifications, to protect the cohorts who occupied the con- 
quered city, and the soldiers' huts were long the only buildings on its 
site. In despair of keeping the Jews in subjection by other means, 
the emperor had formed a design to restore Jerusalem, and thus pre- 
vent it from ever becoming a rallying-point for this turbulent race. 
In furtherance of his plan he had sent thither a colony of veterans, in 
numbers sufficient for the defence of a position so strong by nature 
against the then known modes of attack. To this measure Dion Cas- 
sius attributes a renewal of the insurrection, while Eusebius asserts 
that it was not carried into execution till the outbreak was quelled. 
Be this as it may, the embers of revolt, long smouldering, burst into 
a flame soon after Hadrian's departure from the East, in A. d. 132. 
The contemptuous indifference of the Romans, or the secrecy of their 
own plans, enabled the Jews to organize a wide-spread conspiracy. 
Bar-Cocheba, their leader, the third, according to Rabbinical writers, 
of a dynasty of the same name, princes of the captivity, was crowned 
king at Bether by the Jews who thronged to him, and by the populace 
was regarded as the Messiah. His armor-bearer, Rabbi Akiba, claimed 
descent from Sisera, and hated the Romans with the fierce rancor of 
his adopted nation. All the Jews in Palestine flocked to his standard. 
At an early period in the revolt they became masters of Jerusalem, and 
attempted to rebuild the Temple. Hadrian, alarmed at the rapid 
spread of the insurrection, and the ineffectual efforts of his troops to 
repress it, summoned from Britain Julius Severus, the greatest general 
of his time, to take the command of the army of Judaea. Two years 
were spent in a fierce guerilla warfare before Jerusalem was taken, 
after a desperate defence, in which Bar-Cocheba perished. The courage 
of the defenders was shaken by the falling in of the vaults on Mount 
Zion, and the Romans became masters of the position. But the war 
did not end with the capture of the city. The Jews in great force had 
occupied the fortress of Bether, and there maintained a struggle with 



983 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



all the tenacity of despair against the repeated onsets of the Romans. 
At length, worn out by famine and disease, they yielded on the 9th 
of the month Ab, A. D. 135, and the grandson of Bar-Cocheba was 
amonsr the slain. The slaughter was frightful. Five hundred and 
eighty thousand are said to have fallen by the sword, while the number 
of victims to the attendant calamities of war was countless. On the 
side of the Romans the loss was enormous, and so dearly bought was 
their victory that Hadrian, in his letter to the Senate, announcing the 
conclusion of the war, did not adopt the usual congratulatory phrase. 
Bar-Cocheba has left traces of his occupation of Jerusalem in coins, 
which were struck during the first two years of the war. Four silver 
coins, three of them undoubtedly belonging to Trajan, have been dis- 
covered, restamped with Samaritan 
characters. But the rebel leader, 
amply supplied with the precious 
metals by the contributions of his 
followers, afterward coined his own 
money. The mint was probably 
at Jerusalem during the first two 
E 'c3Sr^&- vears of the war ; the coins struck 
during that period bearing the in- 
scription, " To the freedom of Jeru- 
salem/'" or " Jerusalem the holy." 
They are mentioned in both Tal- 
muds. 

Hadrian's first policy, after the 
suppression of the revolt, was to 
obliterate the existence of Jerusalem 
as a city. The ruins which Titus 
had left were razed to the ground, 
and the' plow passed over the foundations of the Temple. A colony 
of Roman citizens occupied the new city whi6h rose from the ashes 
of Jerusalem, and their number was afterward augmented by the em- 
peror's veteran legionaries. A temple to the Capitoline Jupiter was 
erected on the site of the sacred edifice of the Jews. A temple to 
Astarte, the Phoenician Venus, on the site afterward identified with 
the Sepulchre, appears on coins, with four columns and the inscription 
C. A. C, Colonia JElia Capitolina, but it is more than doubtful 
whether it was erected at this time. 

It was not, however, till the following year, A. D. 136, that Hadrian, 
on celebrating his Vicennalia, bestowed upon the new city the name 




JEWS' W AILING-PLACE. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 989 

of JElia Capitolina, combining with his own family title the name 
of Jupiter of the Capitol, the guardian deity of the colony. Chris- 
tians and pagans alone were allowed to reside in the city. Jews were 
forbidden to enter it on pain of death, and this prohibition remained 
in force in the time of Tertullian. About the middle of the fourth 
century the Jews were allowed to visit the neighborhood, and after- 
ward, once a year, to enter the city itself, and weep over it on the 
anniversary of its capture. Jerome has drawn a vivid picture of the 
wretched crowds of Jews who in his day assembled at the wailing- 
place by the west wall of the Temple to bemoan the loss of their 
ancestral greatness. On the 9th of the month Ab might be seen the 
aged and decrepit of both sexes, with tattered garments and dis- 
hevelled hair, who met to weep over the downfall of Jerusalem, and 
purchased permission of the soldiery to prolong their lamentations 
("et miles mercedem postulat ut illis flere plus liceat"). So com- 
pletely were all traces of the ancient city obliterated that its very name 
was in process of time forgotten. It was not till after Constantine 
built the Martyrion, on the site of the crucifixion, that its ancient 
appellation was revived. In the 7th canon of the Council of Nicaea 
the Bishop of ^Elia is mentioned; but Macarius, in subscribing to 
the canons, designated himself Bishop of Jerusalem. The name of 
iElia occurs as late as A. D. 697, and is even found in Edrisi and 
Mejr-ed-Din about 1495. 

After this revolt the Jews made no further effort to throw off the 
Roman yoke or to regain their country, but were still treated with 
severity by their masters. In spite of these severities, however, in 
less than sixty years after the war under Hadrian, before the close of 
the second century after Christ, the Jews present the extraordinary 
spectacle of two regular and organized communities. One under a 
sort of spiritual head, the Patriarch of Tiberias, comprehending all of 
Israelitish descent who inhabited the Roman empire; the other under 
the Prince of the Captivity, to whom all the eastern Jews paid their 
allegiance. Their persecutions were relaxed, and at length they were 
allowed to form and to maintain considerable establishments both in 
Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy 
municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time an exemption from 
the burdensome and expensive offices of society. The moderation or 
the contempt of the Romans gave a legal sanction to the form of eccle- 
siastical police which was instituted by the vanquished sect. The 
patriarch, who had fixed his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to 
appoint his subordinate ministers and apostles, to exercise a domestic 



990 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

jurisdiction, and to receive from his despised brethren an annual con- 
tribution. New synagogues were frequently erected in the principal 
cities of the empire ; and the Sabbaths, the fasts, and the festivals, 
which were either commanded by the Mosaic law, or enjoined by the 
traditions of the Rabbins, were celebrated in the most solemn and 
public manner. Such gentle treatment insensibly assuaged the stern 
temper of the Jews. Awakened from their dream of prophecy and 
conquest, they assumed the behavior of peaceable and industrious sub- 
jects. Their irreconcilable hatred of mankind, instead of flowing out 
in acts of blood and violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifica- 
tions. They embraced every opportunity of overreaching the idola- 
tors in trade ; and they pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations 
against the haughty kingdom of Edom,* which term they applied to 
Rome. 

This was their condition under the mild rule of Antoninus Pius, but 
their imprudence drew upon them the dislike of the philosophic Mar- 
cus Aurelius, who declared them to be more unruly than the wild 
tribes against whom he waged war. 

It would be interesting to trace at length the dispersion of this 
remarkable people over the face of the earth, but we have not the 
space. We can only say that they spread with the dominion of the 
Roman arms, part as slaves, part as free men with commercial objects, 
or seeking only a safe and peaceful settlement. Wherever the au- 
thority of Rome was owned, or civilization had set its mark, there 
were to be found Jews — either a few individuals, or regular settle- 
ments — all owning an allegiance to the Patriarch of Tiberias in the 
West, and to the Prince of the Captivity in the East. Some no doubt 
made their living by reputable traffic or industry ; others were adven- 
turers, more unscrupulous as to the means by which they obtained 
their subsistence. The empire swarmed with Jewish wonder-workers, 
mathematicians, astrologers, or whatever other name or office they 
assumed or received from their trembling hearers. 

Meanwhile the power of the Rabbins increased. Their influence 
was not founded on the public services of religion alone. The whole 
course of education was committed to their care, or at least to their 
superintendence. The circumcision of a man child was considered 
almost unblessed if not graced by the presence of a Rabbi. They 
were called to tie the marriage knot, visit the sick, bury the dead, to 
counsel and admonish the people, and there was scarcely a domestic 

* Gibbon. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 991 

epoch at which their presence was not considered an indispensable part 
of the ceremony. Nor were the Rabbins slow to profit by this. They 
constantly advanced their pretensions. 'They slowly withdrew into a 
spiritual order; they stood aloof from the worldlings; they avoided 
all familiar intercourse with them ; they would not degrade them- 
selves to intermarriage with them ; they expected to be treated with 
reverence, but would hardly return the common salutation. 

Wherever Jews resided a synagogue might be, and usually was 
formed. Every synagogue was visited in turn by the Legate of the 
Patriarch of Tiberias. These legates were called apostles. They 
had authority to regulate all differences which might arise, and to 
receive the revenue of the Patriarch. Every year a proclamation was 
made by sound of trumpet in every synagogue, commanding the pay- 
ment of the tribute ; its final day of settlement was on the last of 
May. On the return of these legates they informed the Patriarch of 
the state of the synagogues, assisted him as counsellors, and held a 
distinguished rank among the people. 

The western Jews received considerable concessions from Severus, 
whose cause they espoused in the conflict with Niger for the Empire. 
The edict of Antoninus was re-enacted, though still with its limita- 
tion against circumcising proselytes. The Jews were pemitted to un- 
dertake the tutelage of pagans, which shows that they had still the 
privileges of Roman citizenship, and they were exempt from burdens 
incompatible with their religion. Still they were interdicted from 
approaching the walls of their Holy City. 

In the meantime, the Eastern Jews were more mercifully treated 
than those of the West, and the throne of the Prince of the Captivity 
was rapidly rising to the state and dignity which, perhaps, did not 
attain its perfect height till under the Persian monarchs. The Prince 
of the Captivity might recall in his splendor, particularly during his 
inauguration, some lofty reminiscences of the great Jewish monarchy 
under the ancestors from whom he claimed his descent, the holy 
David and the magnificent Solomon, though affectinglv mingled with 
allusions to the present state of degradation. The ceremonial of his 
installation is thus described. The spiritual Heads of the people, the 
Masters of the learned schools, the Elders, and the people, assembled 
in great multitudes within a stately chamber, adorned with rich cur- 
tains, in Babylon, where, during his days of splendor, the Resch- 
Glutha fixed his residence. The Prince was seated on a lofty throne. 
The heads of the schools of Sura and Pumbeditha were on his right 
hand and his left. These chiefs of the learned men, having laid their 



992 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

hands upon the Prince, with the sound of trumpets and other music, 
then delivered an address, exhorting the new monarch not to abuse his 
power ; he was called to slavery rather than to sovereignty, for he 
was prince of a captive people. On the next Thursday he was inau- 
gurated by the laying on of hands, and the sound of trumpets, and 
acclamations. He was escorted to his palace with great pomp, and 
received magnificent presents from all his subjects. On the Sabbath 
all the principal people assembled before his house, he placed himself 
at their head, and, his face covered with a silken veil, proceeded to the 
synagogue. Benedictions and hymns of thanksgiving announced his 
entrance. They then brought him the Book of the Law, out of which 
he read the first line; afterwards he addressed the assembly, with his 
eyes closed out of respect. He exhorted them to charity, and he set 
the example by offering liberal alms to the poor. The ceremony 
closed with new acclamations and prayers to God that, under the new 
Prince, He would be pleased to put an end to their calamities. The 
Prince gave his blessing to the people, and prayed for each province 
that it might be preserved from war and famine. He concluded his 
orisons in a low voice, lest his prayer should be repeated to the jealous 
ears of the native monarchs, for he prayed for the restoration of the 
kingdom of Israel, which could not rise but on the ruins of their 
empire. The Prince returned to his palace, where he gave a splendid 
banquet to the chief persons of the community. After that day he 
lived in a sort of stately oriental seclusion, never quitting his palace 
except to go to the schools of the learned, where, as he entered, the 
whole assembly rose, and continued standing till he took his seat. 
He sometimes paid a visit to the native Sovereign in Babylon (Bag- 
dad). This probably refers to a somewhat later period. On these 
great occasions his imperial host sent his own chariot for his guest ; 
but the Prince of the Captivity dared not accept the invidious distinc- 
tion ; he walked in humble and submissive modesty behind the 
chariot. Yet his own state was by no means wanting in splendor : 
he was arrayed in cloth of gold ; fifty guards marched before him ; all 
the Jews, who met him on the way, paid their homage, and fell be- 
hind into his train. He was received by the eunuchs, who conducted 
him to the throne, while one of his officers, as he marched slowly 
along, distributed gold and silver on all sides. As the Prince ap- 
proached the imperial throne he prostrated himself on the ground, in 
token of vassalage. The eunuchs raised him and placed him on the 
left hand of the Sovereign. After the first salutation, the Prince rep- 
resented the grievances, or discussed the affairs of his people. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 993 

The Court of the Resch-Glutha is described as equally splendid ; 
in imitation of his Persian master, he had his officers, counsellors, and 
cupbearers. Rabbins were appointed as satraps over the different 
communities. This state, it is probable, was maintained by a tribute 
raised from the body of the people, and substituted for that which, in 
ancient times, was paid for the Temple in Jerusalem. His subjects 
in Babylonia were many of them wealthy. They were husbandmen, 
shepherds, and artisans. The Babylonian garments were still famous 
in the West, and probably great part of that lucrative manufacture 
was carried on by the Jews. They prided themselves on their learn- 
ing as well as on their wealth. Though the Palestinian Jews affected 
to speak with contempt of Babylonian wisdom, yet in general estima- 
tion the schools of Nahardea, Sura, and Pumbeditha might compete 
with Sepphoris and Tiberias. 

Whether the authority of the Prince of the Captivity extended 
beyond Babylonia and the adjacent districts is uncertain. The limits 
of Persia form an insuperable barrier to our knowledge, and almost 
all the rest of Asia, during this period, is covered, as it were, with 
impenetrable darkness. Many Jews were no doubt settled in Arabia. 
Mohammed found them both numerous and powerful, and a Jewish 
dynasty had long sat on one of the native thrones. All other accounts 
of Oriental Jews, at this early period, are so obscure, so entirely or so 
nearly fabulous, that they may wisely be dismissed ; but there is one 
curious point, which, as it seems to rest on better evidence, demands 
more particular notice, — the establishment of a Jewish colony in 
China, if not anterior, certainly immediately subsequently to the time 
of our Lord. This singular discovery was made known to Europe 
by the Jesuit missionaries. They had the Books of the Law, and the 
book of Ezra, whose name they highly reverenced, and their religious 
belief and mode of worship corresponded to those of the Jews of 
Palestine. They knew nothing, or at least had preserved no know- 
ledge of Christ or his religion. They were employed in agriculture 
and traffic. They had cultivated learning with success, and some of 
them, as was attested by extant inscriptions, had been highly honored 
with the imperial favor, and had attained the rank of Mandarins. 
They paid great respect to the name of Confucius, and after the 
Chinese customs preserved the memory of their fathers with religious 
reverence, on tablets inscribed with their names. In other respects 
they were strict Jews. 

The middle of the third century beheld all Israel thus incorporated 
into their two communities, under their Papacy and their Caliphate. 
G3 



994 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The next five centuries worked important changes in their condition 
and history. In the East, the restoration of the Magian religion, 
under the great Persian monarchy, at once arrested the progress of 
Christianity in that quarter of the globe, and also added to the 
burdens of the Jews, who, however, still continued to receive more 
privileges from their masters than did their western brethren. 
According to some, they were persecuted by the Fire Worshippers, 
and to a certain extent this was doubtless true ; but on the whole 
their condition must have been favorable, as the pomp of their Prince, 
the wealth of his subjects, and the flourishing condition of the Meso- 
potamian schools, are strong testimonies to the equitable and tolerant 
government of their Persian rulers. The compilation of the Baby- 
lonian Talmud, which belongs to this period, as it shows the industry 
of its compilers, seems to indicate likewise the profound peace enjoyed 
by the Jewish masters of the schools. The influence of the Talmud 
on European superstitions, opinions, and even literature, was remark- 
able ; to the Jew the Talmud became the magic circle, within which 
the national mind patiently labored for ages in performing the bidding 
of the ancient and mighty enchanters, who drew the sacred line, 
beyond which it might not venture to pass. 

The western Jews must have beheld with deeper dismay, and more 
profound astonishment at the mysterious dispensations of Providence, 
the rival religion of Christianity (that apostasy, as they esteemed it, 
from the worship of Jehovah) gradually extending over the whole of 
Europe, till at length, under Constantine, it ascended the imperial 
throne, and became the established religion of the Roman world. 
The Patriarchate of Tiberias seems gradually to have sunk in estima- 
tion. This small spiritual court fell, like more splendid and worldly 
thrones, through the struggles of the sovereign for unlimited sway, 
and the unwillingness of the people to submit even to constitutional 
authority. The exactions of the pontiff and of the spiritual aristocracy 
— the Rabbins — became more and more burdensome to the people. 
The people were impatient even of the customary taxation. 

A temporary splendor was thrown around the Jewish name by the 
celebrity of Zenobia, the famous Queen of Palmyra, who was of 
Israelitkh descent. But the Jews of Palestine neither derived much 
advantage from the prosperity, nor suffered in the fall of that extra- 
ordinary woman. 

Under Constantine a decided effort was made to convert 

the Jews to Christianity, and they, in their turn, exerted 

themselves to make proselytes from the Christian ranks, and neither 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 995 

side confined themselves to means purely spiritual in this contest. 
The Christians urged their conquests into the very heart of the 
enemy's country. Constantine, by the advice of his mother Helena, 
adorned with great magnificence the city which had risen on the ruins 
of Jerusalem. It had become a place of such splendor that Eusebius, 
in a transport of holy triumph, declared that it was the New Jeru- 
salem foretold by the prophets. The Jews were probably still inter- 
dicted from disturbing the peace or profaning the soil of the Christian 
City, by entering its walls. They revenged themselves by rigidly 
excluding every stranger from the four great cities which they 
occupied — Dio Csesarea (Sepphoris), Nazareth, Capernaum, and Tibe- 
rias. As it was the ambition of the Jews to regain a footing in the 
Holy City, so it was that of the Christians to establish a church 
among the dwellings of the circumcised. 

The laws of Constantine were very severe upon the Jews. 
o^a' oJa The first of these statutes enacted that if the Jews should 
stone, or endanger the life of a Christian convert, all who 
were concerned should be burned alive. This statute shows the still 
fiery zeal of the Jews, and their authority within the walls of their 
own synagogue ; nor had they any right to complain if proselytes to 
the established faith should be protected from their violence under 
the severest penalties. The second clause of this statute prohibited 
all Christians from becoming Jews, under the pain of an arbitrary 
punishment; and, six months before his death, a third decree was 
issued by Constantine, prohibiting the Jews from possessing Christian 
slaves. Other laws were enacted, restricting their civil privileges; 
and, still earlier than these, a decree of the Council of Elvira (Illi- 
beris) in Spain had prevented the Jews from mingling with the 
Christians in the harvest feasts, as had been their custom. 

It is said that the Jews in the East revenged themselves for these 
oppressive laws against their brethren by exciting a furious persecu- 
tion against the Christians, in which the Jews and Magians vied with 
each other in violence. Constantius, the son and successor of Con- 
stantine, enacted still sharper laws against the Jews, whose outrages 
upon the Christians of Alexandria unhappily afforded justification 
for these severe measures. They were heavily burdened and taxed ; 
forbidden, under pain of death, from possessing Christian slaves, or 
marrying Christian women ; and the interdict of Hadrian, which pro- 
hibited their approach to the Holy City, was formally renewed. 
This prohibition was more than ever galling by the distant view of 
the splendor which the new city had attained, and the sight of the 
long trains of Christian pilgrims wending their way thither. 






996 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Under such circumstances, they gladly hailed the accession of 
Julian, the apostate from Christianity. The temporal as well as the 
religious policy of Julian advised his conciliation of the 
Jews. Could they be lured by his splendid promises to 
embrace his party, the Jews in Mesopotamia would have thrown 
great weight into his scale in his campaigns against the Persians ; and 
in his design of depressing Christianity, it was important to secure 
the support of every opposite sect. Probably with these views the 
memorable edict was issued for the rebuilding of the Temple on 
Mount Moriah, and the restoration of the Jewish worship in its 
original splendor. The execution of this project was entrusted, while 
Julian advanced with his ill-fated army to the East, to the care of 
his favorite, Alypius. 

The whole Jewish world was in commotion, and men and 
women crowded from all quarters to Jerusalem to assist in 
the great national work. Materials of every kind were provided at the 
emperor's expense and through the offerings of the Jews ; and so great 
was the enthusiasm of the Israelites that their women took part in 
the work, and in the laps of their garments carried off the earth which 
covered the ruins of the Temple. But a sudden earthquake and 
whirlwind shattered the stones of the former foundations ; the work- 
men fled for shelter to one of the neighboring churches, the doors of 
which were closed against them by an invisible hand, and a fire issuing 
from the Temple-mount raged the whole day and consumed their 
tools. Numbers perished in the flames. Some who escaped took 
refuge in a portico near at hand, which fell at night and crushed them 
as they slept. Whatever may have been the coloring which this story 
received as it passed through the hands of the ecclesiastical historians, 
the impartial narrative of Ammianus Marcellinus, the friend and com- 
panion-in-arms of the emperor, leaves no reasonable doubt of the 
truth of the main facts that the work was interrupted by fire, which 
all attributed to supernatural agency. In the time of Chrysostom the 
foundations of the Temple still remained, to which the orator could 
appeal. The event was regarded as a judgment of God upon the im- 
pious attempt of Julian to falsify the predictions of Christ: a position 
which Bishop Warburton defends with great skill in his treatise on 
the subject; but other writers of high authority regard it as a legend 
invented by superfluous and short-sighted zeal. 

The discomfiture of the Jews was complete ; and the resumption of 
their labors, could they have recovered from their panic, was forever 
broken off by the death of Julian. The emperor seems not to have 



SECULAK HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 997 

reaped the advantages he expected from his attempt to conciliate the 
race of Israel. The Mesopotamian Jews, instead of joining his army, 
remained faithful to their Persian masters, and abandoned such of 
their cities as were not defensible. The Apostate himself fell in this 
campaign, and in his death the last hopes of the Jew were extin- 
guished. 

The short reign of Jovian, whose policy it was to reverse all the 
acts of his predecessor, was oppressive to the Jews; but it was only a 
passing cloud. Valens and Valentinian reinstated the Jews and their 
Patriarch in their former rights ; yet the state of the empire demanded 
the repeal of their most valuable privilege — exemption from the public 
service. The Jews could not complain if, admitted to the protection 
and rights of Roman citizenship, they were constrained to perform its 
duties. 

During the declining days of the Roman empire, Christianity as- 
sumed a more commanding influence, and the Jews sometimes became 
a subject of contention between the Church and the throne. Perse- 
cuted by the Ecclesiastics as heretics and outcasts, they were protected 
by the emperor as useful and profitable subjects. The fierce zeal of 
some of these churchmen and the active fanaticism of the Jews fre- 
quently brought their contests to open violence, in which much blood 
was shed. The Arians were mainly favorable to the Jews, but they 
met with little else than sternness from the Catholic or orthodox 
Church. Meanwhile the Patriarchate expired in the person of Gama- 
liel (a. d. 429) ; and, although the Jerusalem Talmud had been com- 
piled long since, it was eclipsed by the Babylonian Talmud, which 
became the law and the religion of the whole race of Israel. 

The irruption of the Barbarians into Europe, during the latter half 
to about the end of the fifth century, which completely overturned 
society, affected the Jews much more lightly than the native inhabi- 
tants. Attached to no fixed residence, with little interest in the laws 
and usages of the different provinces ; rarely encumbered with landed 
property or with immovable effects; sojourners, not settlers, denizens 
rather than citizens, they could retreat before the cloud burst to the 
more peaceful dwellings of their brethren, and bear with them the 
most valuable portion of their goods. True citizens of the world, they 
shifted their quarters, and found new channels for their trade as fast 
as the old ones were closed. But the watchful son of Israel fled to 
return again, in order that he might share in the plunder of the un- 
circumcised. If, indeed, individuals experienced considerable losses, 
their whole trading community had great opportunities of reimburse- 



998 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

nient, which they were not likely to overlook or neglect in the wild 
confusion of property which attended the conquests of the invaders. 
"Where battles were fought, and immense plunder fell into the hands 
of the wandering Barbarians, the Jews were still at hand to traffic the 
worthless and glittering baubles with which ignorant savages are de- 
lighted, or the more useful but comparatively cheap instruments and 
weapons of iron and brass, for the more valuable commodities of which 
the vendors knew not the price or the use. These, by the rapid and 
secret correspondence which no doubt the Israelites had already estab- 
lished with their brethren in every quarter of the world, were trans- 
ported into more peaceful and unplundered regions, which still afforded 
a market for the luxuries and ornaments of life. Knowing the exact 
price which every article would bear in the various markets of the 
civilized world, and deterred by no scruples from spoiling the Gen- 
tiles, we may be sure the Jews made remarkably favorable bargains. 
Even the clergy were sometimes driven by their wants to sell the 
treasures and ornaments of their churches to the Jews. 

Large numbers of Christian captives fell into the hands of the con- 
quering Barbarians, and many of these were sold to the Jews as slaves. 
The Jews, indeed, seem to have had the slave trade entirely in their 
own hands. The Christian kings, the popes, and the councils all 
exerted themselves to lighten the hardships of these captives. Every 
effort was made to redeem them from bondage, and every difficulty 
was thrown in the way of the Jew in his effort to retain his Christian 
slaves. Pope Gregory the First was especially active in these efforts, 
though he used his influence also to prevent the persecution of the 
Jews. Chilperic of France compelled the Jews to receive baptism, 
and enforced his edicts with cruel severity. 

Justinian put in force severe measures against the Jews and Sama- 
ritans. In litigations between Christians and Jews, or between Chris- 
tians only, their testimony was admitted ; but that of a Samaritan or 
a Manichsean was of no value. By another law, all unbelievers, 
heathen, Jews, and Samaritans, could neither be judges nor prefects, 
nor fill any other dignity in the state. Justinian also enacted, that in 
mixed marriages between Jews and Christians, the chief authority 
over the children should rest with the Christian parent. A Jew parent 
could not disinherit his Christian child. But the Samaritans were 
treated more harshly ; they were entirely deprived of the right of 
bequeathing or conveying their property to unbelievers. Those of 
their children who embraced Christianity inherited to the exclusion of 
the rest. Samaritans could not sue in courts of law. Their syna- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 999 

gogues were ordered to be destroyed, and severe penalties were de- 
nounced against any one who should attempt to rebuild them. These 
cruel statutes — which sowed dissensions in the bosom of every family, 
caused endless litigations among the nearest relatives, almost offered 
a premium on filial disobedience, and enlisted only the basest motives 
on the side of true religion — were either too flagrantly iniquitous to 
be put in execution, or shocked the cooler judgment of the imperial 
legislator. Segris, Bishop of Csesarea, obtained a mitigation of these 
severities against the Samaritans ; but Justin revived all the oppressive 
statutes of his father, and the result was that the Samaritans gradually 
became extinct as a race. The supposition is that the majority of them 
embraced Christianity for the purpose of saving their property. ' 

Meanwhile various causes had been contributing, since the downfall 
of the Patriarchate, to weaken the power of the Rabbins. Among 
other things the people, who had now entirely forgotten both the 
Hebrew of the Scriptures and the vernacular of Palestine, began im- 
periously to demand the general use of Greek translations. The craft 
of the Rabbins was in danger ; it rested almost entirely on their know- 
ledge of the original Hebrew writings, still more of the Mischnaioth 
and Talmudic comments. Hebrew was the sacred language, and the 
language of learning once superseded by Greek, the mystery would 
be open to profane eyes ; and reason and plain common sense, instead 
of authority, might become the bold interpreters of the written Law, 
perhaps would dare to reject entirely the dominion of tradition. The 
Rabbins had much reason and more stubborn prejudice on their side. 
They were fighting for life and death, and armed themselves with all 
the spiritual terrors they could assume. They fulminated anathemas; 
they branded their opponents as freethinkers and Atheists. At length 
the affair came before the emperor. Whether his passion for legisla- 
tion, which sometimes even the Christian bishops complained induced 
Justinian to intrude into concerns beyond his province, led him to 
regulate the synagogue, or whether the disputes ran so high as to dis- 
turb the public peace, and demand the interference of the supreme 
authority, or whether the appeal was in fact voluntarily made, an edict 
was issued which enacted that no one who wished to do so should be 
prevented from reading the Greek Scriptures in the synagogue; it 
enjoined those who read Greek to use the translation of the Seventy, 
which had been executed under the special though less manifest influ- 
ence of the Holy Ghost, because the prophecies relating to Christianity 
were most clear in that translation ; but it did not prohibit the version 
of Aquila or any other. It positively interdicted the use of the Mis- 



1000 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

chna, as the invention of worldly men, which misled the people into 
miserable superstition. None of the Archiperacitse, the readers of 
Peracha, or extracts of the Talmud, on pain of confiscation of goods 
and corporal chastisement, were to forbid the use of other languages, 
or dare to utter ban or interdict against such practices. On the other 
hand, free-thinking, Atheism, and such crimes, were to be severely 
punished. Whoever denied the existence of God, of the angels, the 
creation, and the final judgment, was condemned to death. The law 
terminated with a solemn admonition to read the Scriptures, so as to 
improve their spirits and hearts, and increase in knowledge and mo- 
rality. The law was wise and moderate; but, as Jost observes, the 
emperor probably prevented its operation by betraying too openly its 
object — the conversion of the Jews. The spirit of the age was against 
him ; the Rabbins eventually triumphed ; the Talmud maintained its 
authority. 

In his former persecuting edicts, the short-sighted emperor had 
alike miscalculated his own strength and the weakness of the Jews. 
Rome, in the zenith of her power, might despise the discontents of a 
scattered people, or a mutinous province, but in these disastrous times 
it was dangerous for the feeble Eastern empire to alienate the affec- 
tions of the meanest of its subjects. The Jews had the power, and 
could not be expected to want the desire of vengeance. Even in the 
West they were of some importance. During the siege of Naples by 
Belisarius, the Jews, who loved the milder dominion of the Gothic 
kings, defended one quarter of the city with obstinate resolution, and 
yielded only when the conqueror was within the gates. On the East- 
ern frontier, now that the Persian monarchy on the Tigris was an 
equal match for the wreck of the Roman empire on the Bosphorus, 
an oppressed and unruly population, on the accessible frontier of 
Syria, holding perpetual intercourse with their more favored, though 
by no means unsuspected brethren in Babylonia, might be suspected 
of awaiting with ill-suppressed impatience the time when, during 
some inevitable collision between the two empires, they might find an 
opportunity of vengeance on masters against whom they had so long 
an arrear of wrong. Therefore, they eagerly welcomed the advance 
of the Persian monarch, Chosroes II., who, in A. D. 610, invaded 
Palestine. They rose unanimously, joined the Persians, and assisted 
them to capture Jerusalem, then a Christian city. Once in possession 
of the place, they massacred the Christian inhabitants, but were soon 
terribly punished for their mad course by the victorious emperor, 
Hcraclius, who not only drove the Persian monarch back into his 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1001 

own dominions, but regained the provinces of Syria and Egypt, 
which had been overrun by the Persians. The law of Hadrian was 
reenacted, which prohibited the Jews from approaching within three 
miles of the city, — a law which, in the present exasperated state of 
the Christians, might be a measure of security or mercy rather than 
of oppression. 

During the conflict between the Persian and Roman emperors, a 
power was rapidly growing up in the secret deserts of Arabia, which 
was to erect its throne upon the ruins of both. Mohammed had 
already announced his religious doctrine, — " There is but one God, 
and Mohammed is his prophet," — and the valleys of Arabia had 
echoed with the triumphant battle cry of his followers, " The Koran 
or death ! 9i The Jews were among the first of whom Mohammed 
endeavored to make proselytes, — the first opponents, and the first 
victims of the sanguinary teachings of the new Apostle. He was at 
first hopeful of winning them over to his religion ; but, finding them 
unwilling to accept as the greatest of the prophets a descendant of 
Ishmael, turned his arms against them, and after a long struggle 
captured their castles and strongholds in Arabia, where they were 
very numerous and powerful. Omar and his generals conquered 
Jerusalem, Tiberias, Damascus, Antioch, and Alexandria from the 
Byzantines, and subdued Persia, thus bringing most of the eastern 
Jews under the rule of Islam. Jerusalem yielded an easy conquest 
to the triumphant Omar, and though the Jews might behold with 
secret dissatisfaction the magnificent mosque of the conqueror usurping 
the sacred hill on which the Temple of Solomon had stood, yet still 
they would find consolation in the degradation of the Christians, and 
the obscurity into which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was 
thrown ; and even, perhaps, might cherish the enthusiastic hope that 
the new Temple might be destined for a holier use. Some Christian 
writers accuse the Jews of a deep-laid conspiracy to advance the 
cause of Mohammedanism ; but probably this conspiracy was no 
more than their united prayers and vows that their oppressors might 
fall before a power which ruled them on the easy terms of tribute, 
the same which they exacted from all their conquered provinces. 

In Spain, however, it is probable that they took a more active 
interest than their secret prayers and thanksgivings in the triumph 
of the Crescent. Spain had already taken the lead in Jewish perse- 
cution, and Spain had without doubt reason to rue the measures 
which set a great part of its most industrious population in justifiable 
hostility to its laws and government, and made them ready to hail 
the foreign conqueror as a deliverer and benefactor. 



1002 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

For above a century their wrongs had been accumulating. As 
early as the reign of Recared, the first Catholic king of the Goths, 
they had attained unexampled prosperity in the Peninsula. They 
were, to a great extent, the cultivators of the soil, which rewarded 
their patient industry with the most ample return ; and often the 
administrators of the finances, for which they were well qualified by 
their knowledge of trade. Bigotry, envy, and avarice conspired to 
point them out as objects of persecution. Laws were passed, of which 
the spirit may be comprehended from the preamble and the titles : 
u Laws concerning the promulgation and ratification of statutes against 
Jewish wickedness, and for the general extirpation of Jewish errors. 
That the Jews may not celebrate the Passover according to their 
usage ; that the Jews may not contract marriage according to their 
own customs; that the Jews may not practise circumcision ; that the 
Jews make no distinction of meats; that the Jews bring no action 
against Christians ; that the Jews be not permitted to bear witness 
against Christians ; of the time when their converted descendants are 
admissible as witnesses; of the penalties attached to the transgression 
of these statutes by the Jews ; against the circumcision of slaves by 
the Jews." The penalty for these offences was even more extra- 
ordinary than the offences themselves : the criminal was to be stoned 
to death, or burned by the hands of his own people. These laws, 
however, do not at first seem to have come into operation. It is 
suspected, from a passage in a letter of Pope Gregory, that the Israel- 
ites paid a large sum of money for their suspension. Sisebut, the 
fourth in succession from Recared, put these laws rigorously in force, 
and enacted others equally intolerant. Finally, he commanded them 
either to abandon their religion, or to leave the dominions of the 
Goths. They endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose, but he 
was remorseless. The Jews were thrown into prison, and treated 
with the utmost rigor. Some fled into France or Africa, others aban- 
doned their religion, 90,000 are reported to have submitted to bap- 
tism ; but how far their hearts renounced their creed, or how speedily 
they relapsed, must remain uncertain. 

In the next reign but one, that of Sisenand, the Jews 
obtained a relaxation of the oppressive statutes from an 
unexpected quarter. The Fourth Council of Toledo, influenced by the 
wise and good Isidore of Seville, considerably modified the laws of 
Sisebut; but the Sixth Council renewed the persecution, and severely 
censured the mild spirit of the Fourth Council. The Eighth Council 
of Toledo (a. d. 653) re-enacted the oppressive measures. The Ninth 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1003 

Council had decreed that all baptized Jews were bound to appear in 
the. church, not only on Christian but also on Jewish holidays, lest, 
while professed Christians, they should practise secret Judaism. But 
the Twelfth Council of Toledo, or rather the Legislature, with the full 
assent and approbation of the Council, in the reign of Ervig, far sur- 
passed its predecessors in the elaborate cruelty of its enactments, even 
if aimed only at Jews professing Christianity. But though aimed 
professedly at the Jews within the pale of the Church, there is room 
for believing that these measures were in reality directed against all 
the Jews within the kingdom. The Jews were assembled in the 
church of the Holy Virgin at Toledo, and the resolutions of this Chris- 
tian assembly were read aloud to them. The preamble complained that 
the crafty Jews had eluded all former laws, and attributed the failure 
of these statutes to the severity of the punishment enacted, which was 
death in all cases — contrary, it was added, to the Holy Scriptures. 
The penalties of the new statutes were mitigated, but not in mercy. 
The general punishment was one hundred lashes on the naked body ; 
after that the offender was to be put in chains, banished, and his pro- 
perty confiscated to the lord of the soil. This was the penalty for pro- 
faning the name of Christ, rejecting the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, 
blaspheming the Trinity ; for not bringing children or servants, them- 
selves, or their dependants, to baptism ; for observing the Passover, 
the New Moon, the Feast of Tabernacles (in these cases, on real con- 
version, the land was restored) ; for violating the Christian Sabbath, 
or the great festivals of the Church, either by working in the field or 
in manufacture. If these days were desecrated by a servant, the 
master was liable to a fine. The circumcision of a child was more 
cruelly visited, on the man by mutilation ; on the woman by the loss 
of her nose and the seizure of her property. The same penalty was 
attached to the conversion of a Christian to Judaism. The former 
punishment — scourging, imprisonment, banishment, and confiscation — 
was incurred by those who made a difference in meats. An exemption 
was granted to new converts, who were not constrained to eat swine's 
flesh if their nature revolted against it. The same penalty fell on all 
who intermarried within the sixth degree of relationship. Such mar- 
riages were declared null ; the property was to be divided among the 
children, if not Jews. If there were no children, or only children 
educated in Judaism, it fell to the lord of the soil. No marriage was 
hereafter to be contracted without a clause in the act of dower that 
both would become Christians. All who offended against this law, 
even the parents concerned in such a marriage, were to be fined or 



1004 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

scourged. All subjects of the kingdom who harbored, assisted, or 
concealed the flight of a Jew, were to be scourged and have their pro- 
perty confiscated. Whoever received bribes from a Jew to conceal his 
practice of Judaism, was fined thrice the sum he had received. The 
Jew who read, or allowed his children to read, books written against 
Christianity, suffered one hundred lashes ; on the second offence the 
lashes were repeated, with banishment and confiscation. Christian 
slaves of Jews were declared free ; the Jews had no right of emanci- 
pating them ; but a given time was allowed in which they might sell 
those of whom they were possessed. As many Jews, in order to re- 
tain their Christian slaves, pretended to Christianity, the whole race 
were commanded, by a given day, to bring their slaves for sale, or 
publicly to embrace Christianity. If not immediately baptized, they 
were to lodge a solemn protest of their faith with the bishop ; and all 
converts were to take an oath, of which the form was subjoined, an oath 
of terrific sublimity, which even now makes the reader shudder, when 
he remembers that it was forced upon unwilling consciences, and per- 
haps taken by those who secretly renounced its obligations. All Jewish 
slaves, by embracing Christianity, obtained their freedom. Xo Jew 
could take any office by which he might have authority over or con- 
strain a Christian, except in certain cases where power might be 
granted by the feudal lord. In such a case, if he abused the law, he 
was punished by the loss of half his property or by stripes. Even 
the noble who granted such a power was liable to a fine, or, in default 
of payment, to the same ignominious punishment. Xo Jew might be 
intendant, house steward, or overseer. Should a bishop, priest, or 
other ecclesiastic, commit the property of the church to a Jewish 
intendant, his property was to be confiscated ; in default, himself burnt. 
No Jew could travel from one town or province to another without 
reporting himself to the bishop or judge of the place. They were 
forced to eat, drink, and communicate with Christians; they could not 
move without a certificate of good behavior and a passport. On the 
Jewish Sabbath and holy days they were all to assemble before the 
bishop. The bishop was to appoint women to overlook their wives 
and daughters. The spiritual person who took a bribe to relax his 
vigilance was to be degraded and excommunicated. Whoever pro- 
tected a Jew against his spiritual overseer, was to be excommunicated 
and pay a heavy fine. No civil judge could act in any case of this 
kind without the concurrence of the priesthood, if their presence could 
be procured. The remission of penalties might be granted on a certi- 
ficate of Christian behavior. All spiritual persons were to communi- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1005 

cate these statutes to the Jews in their respective dioceses and cures. 
Such Avere the acts of the kingdom of Spain, ratified or commanded 
by the Twelfth Council of Toledo ; but happily laws, when they are 
carried to such an extreme of cruelty as to shock the general feeling, 
usually prevent their own execution. The council might enact, but 
the people would carry into effect but imperfectly these horrible scenes 
of scourging and confiscation. Wealth, notwithstanding the menaces 
of the law, would purchase immunity and exemption ; and though 
many fled, and many probably outwardly conformed, the successor of 
Ervig, Egica, found it expedient to relax the laws, so far as to allow 
baptized Jews all the privileges of citizens, which before were but 
jealously or imperfectly bestowed ; in all other respects the statutes 
of Ervig remained in force. Fear may have extorted this concession ; 
but the fear of the monarch shows how ineffective the former laws 
must have been if the Jews were still so numerous as to be formidable. 
Already the shores of Africa were beginning to gleam with the 
camps of the Saracens, who threatened to cross the narrow strait, and 
overwhelm the trembling Gothic monarchy. The Jews were accused 
of a general conspiracy to aid the Saracens, and it is no wonder that 
they should have done what lay in their power to accelerate the 
march of the victorious deliverer. The Church and State united in a 
decree to confiscate all the property of the Jews to the royal treasury, 
— to disperse the whole race, as slaves, through the country, — to seize 
all their children under seven years of age, to bring them up as 
Christians, marry them to Christian wives, and to abolish forever 
the exercise of the Jewish faith. A great flight of the Jews probably 
took place ; for Witiza, the successor of Egica, attempting too late to 
heal the wounds by conciliation, granted them permission to return 
into the Gothic States, with full rights of freedom and citizenship. 
But the vows o£ the Jews had been heard, or their intrigues had been 
successful. They returned, and to the enjoyment of all rights and 
privileges of freedom, — not, indeed, under the Christian kings, but 
under the dominion of the Moorish Caliphs, who established their 
rule over almost the whole of Spain. The munificence of these 
sovereigns bears the appearance of gratitude for valuable services, 
and confirms the suspicion that the Jews were highly instrumental in 
advancing the triumph of the Crescent. At all events, when Toledo 
opened her gates to the Moorish conqueror (whether the Jews were 
openly or secretly active in the fall of the city), with what infinite 
satisfaction must they have beheld the capital of the persecuting 
Visigothic kings, and the seat of those remorseless Councils which had 



1006 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

forcibly baptized or exiled their devoted ancestors, or deprived them 
of their children, now become the palace of kings, if not kindred in 
lineage, yet Monotheists like themselves, under whose rule they knew 
that their brethren in the East and in Africa were permitted to enjoy 
their lives and their religion undisturbed, under whom they found 
equal justice, rose to high honor, at least labored under no proscrip- 
tion, dreaded no persecution! How much more must they have 
exulted when they were summoned to assume the command of this 
great city, and to maintain it for their Moslem deliverers ! The 
reward of their prayers or their acts for the success of Islamism was 
a golden age of freedom, of civilization, and of letters. They shared 
with and emulated their splendid masters in all the luxuries and arts 
which soften and embellish life, during that era of high, though, if 
we may so say, somewhat barbaric civilization, under which the 
southern provinces of Spain became that paradise for which they were 
designed by nature. 

France had obeyed the signal of Spain, and hung out the bloody 
flag of persecution. But her measures were ill combined, and proba- 
bly worse executed ; for many of the fugitives from Spain sought and 
found comparative security among their brethren in Gaul. In A. D. 
615, Jews were disqualified from all military and civil offices which 
gave them authority over Christians. The Council of Rheims (a. d. 
627) annulled all bargains entered into by Jews for the purchase of 
Christian slaves ; that of Chalons, on the Marne, prohibited the Jews 
irom selling Christian slaves beyond the frontier of the kingdom. 
Dagobert commanded all Jews to forswear their religion or leave the 
kingdom. But in the northern part of France this edict was so little 
enforced, that a Jew held the office of tax collector at the Gate of St. 
Denys in Paris. In the south, where they were far more numerous 
and wealthy, they carried on their trade with uninterrupted success. 
In the great rebellion of the Gallic part of the Visigothic kingdom, 
Paul, who had usurped the throne, and Hilderic Count of Nismes, 
had recalled the Jews into the realm. King Wamba, the predecessor 
of Ervig, on the suppression of the rebellion, took vengeance on the 
Jews by reenforcing the persecuting edicts of Sisebut I.; but in later 
days the wiser monarchs of the Visigothic kingdom in France alto- 
gether renounced the intolerant policy of the Merovingian race. 

Under the Caliphs, the successors of Mohammed, the Jews were 
protected and enjoyed what may be called their golden age. They 
taught their Moslem masters in the East the arts of civilization and 
refinement, and aided them in many ways to lay aside their stern 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1007 

barbaric customs for the manners of a more peaceful and civilized 
state. The Caliph readily acknowledged as his vassal the Prince of 
the Captivity, who maintained his state as representative of the 
Jewish community ; probably, through him the tribute was levied on 
his brethren. As early as the time of Omar, the second Caliph, and 
his successor Abdalmelech, a trust of great importance, the coinage, 
had been committed to the care of a Jew. But it was not by mechan- 
ical operations alone, like the coinage, or by traffic, in which, as 
single traders, or even as mercantile firms, they pervaded the whole 
East as well as the West, that the Jews rendered invaluable services 
to the Barbarian conquerors, and aided very powerfully in raising 
them from the chieftains of wild, marauding tribes into magnificent, 
in some respects enlightened, sovereigns. By traffic, residence, per- 
haps habits, they were familiar with Greek, and acquired Arabic, as a 
kindred language to their own, with great facility. Arabic, indeed, 
to a great extent, became the vernacular tongue of the Jews. Hebrew, 
Rabbinical Hebrew, became a sort of sacred language. We know 
what took place to a great extent under the flourishing dominions of 
the Mussulmans in Spain, when Europe, seeking her old lost treas- 
ures of arts and knowledge among the more enlightened descendants 
of the Arabs, found the learned Jews of Cordova and Toledo, as it 
were, half way between the East and West, and used them as inter- 
mediate agents in that intellectual intercourse. So, in all probability, 
at an earlier period, in Damascus and Bagdad, the Jews were the 
most active interpreters, not only of the western languages, but of the 
western mind to the conquerors. 

About A. D. 753, under Abu Giafar Almansor, we find the Jews 
intrusted with the office of exacting a heavy mulct laid upon the 
Christians. It was a tax which comprehended ecclesiastics, monks, 
hermits, those who stood on columns. The sacred vessels of churches 
were seized and purchased by the Jews. Under this fostering gov- 
ernment the schools flourished ; those in Sura and Pumbeditha were 
crowded with hearers; the Gaonim, or the Illustrious, were at the 
height of their fame ; they formed a sort of senate, and while the 
Prince of the Captivity maintained the sovereign executive power, 
they assumed the legislative. Their reign was for the most part un- 
disturbed, though sometimes a rapacious Caliph or an over-zealous 
Iman might make them feel that the sword of authority still hung 
over them, and that the fire of zealous Islamism was not vet burned 
out. Giafar the Great is reported to have framed an edict to force 
Jews and Christians to embrace Islamism. Sultan Yathek held them 



1008 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

in contempt and dislike. His brother and successor, Motavakel, was 
a sterner persecutor. He issued an edict that all the Jews and Chris- 
tians in his empire should wear a leather girdle, to distinguish them 
from the faithful. He prohibited them from sitting on the Divan of 
Justice. At first he only forbade their use of iron stirrups ; but he 
degraded them still farther ; they were no longer to mount the noble 
horse, they were only permitted to ride the mule or the ass. This 
debasing distinction is still put in force by law or by usage, enforced 
by popular hatred, in many parts of the Turkish dominions. 

It was during this period that the Karaites, the Pro- 
testants of Judaism, who, perhaps, had never been entirely 
extinct, grew again into a formidable sect. The Luther of this 
Reformation, which, perhaps, was not less rapidly diffused for its 
similarity to the simpler creed of Islamism, was named Anan, who, 
with his son Saul, revolted from Rabbinism. In a contest for the 
succession to the Princedom of the Captivity, or to some other high 
office, Anan was passed by, and his younger brother appointed. 
Embittered by this affront, Anan assembled the wreck of the Saddu- 
cean party, so called probably by contempt, and persuaded them to 
name him to the dignity. Tumults arose ; the government interfered ; 
and Anan was thrown into prison. He recovered his freedom, some 
say by a large sum of money, which his followers gladly paid, as he 
gave out that he had been visited in a dream by the Prophet Elias, 
who encouraged him in his adherence to the pure Law of Moses. 
But his success was chiefly owing to an artifice suggested by an 
Arabian philosopher, whom he met with in prison. He demanded 
of the Vizier a public disputation with his adversaries, and repre- 
sented the only cause of their differences to be a dispute about the 
period of the new moon. The Caliph was a dabbler in astronomy; 
and Anan, by dexterously adopting his opinion, obtained a triumph. 
The Karaites retired to the neighborhood of Jerusalem, to maintain 
in peace their simple creed, in their adherence to which the sight of 
the Holy City might confirm them. They hoped that thus a pure 
and righteous people might be ready to hail the accomplishment of 
its last Article. The following were, and still are, the Articles of the 
Karaite belief: — I. That the world was created; II. That it had an 
uncreated Creator; III. That God is without form, and in every 
sense One ; IV. That God sent Moses ; V. That God delivered the 
Law to Moses ; VI. That the believer must deduce his creed from 
the knowledge of the Law in its original language, and from the pure 
interpretation of it; VII. That God inspired the rest of the Prophets; 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1009 

VIII. That God will raise the dead; IX. That God will reward 
and punish all men before his throne ; X. That God has not rejected 
his unhappy people, but is purifying them by affliction, and that they 
must daily strive to render themselves worthy of redemption through 
Messiah, the son of David. The Karaites formed a regular commu- 
nity, under their Nasi, which name afterward gave place to that of 
Hachim; they have since spread into many countries, where they 
are hated and denounced as heretics by the Rabbins. They found 
their way from the East into Spain at the height of Jewish prosperity 
and learning. They made more progress in the Christian States 
than among the Arabic Jews. They were met with jealous opposi- 
tion by the Rabbinical authorities ; they made proselytes from their 
familiarity with the Arabic, more vernacular with the Jew than the 
Rabbinical Hebrew. But all intermarriages were forbidden by the 
dominant party ; their trade was discouraged ; they had no great or 
eloquent writers, and had dwindled away almost to nothing before 
the great expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Their chief settlements 
in later days have been in Poland and the east of Europe, in the 
Taurus, and in Tartary. 

Under Charlemagne, the Jews enjoyed considerable prosperity, 
though at the beginning of his reign they were treated with the old 
Roman or religious contempt, and subjected to many disadvantages. 
As the time advanced, however, the great monarch became more 
liberal. The commerce of the Jews flourished, and found a wide 
field in the extended domains of Charlemagne. They traded with the 
East, in their own ships, from the ports of Narbonne and Marseilles ; 
and in Narbonne they were so prosperous that of the two prefects or 
mayors of the city, one was always a Jew, and the most regular and 
stately part of the city of Lyons was the Jewish quarter. The supe- 
rior intelligence and education of the Jews, in a period when nobles 
and kings, and even the clergy, could not always write their names, 
pointed them out for offices of trust. They were the physicians, the 
ministers of finance, to nobles and monarchs. As physicians they 
alone perhaps (for they had taught the Arabians) kept up the sacred 
traditions of the art, the knowledge of the properties of drugs, which 
had come down from the East and from the Greeks. They were in 
the courts of kings, in the schools of Salerno and Montpelier. It is 
true that if their medical skill (which all mankind must submit to the 
necessity of employing) forced them into places of trust and honor, it 
exposed them to inevitable dangers. Their skill was attributed by 
the ignorant people of the times to sorcery and unlawful dealing. If 
64 



1010 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

they were successful, they were accused of working their cures by 
diabolic aid ; if unsuccessful, they were suspected of knowingly ad- 
ministering poison to the patient. 

As financiers, too, we find them in the courts of the kings and of 
the great vassals, encountering all the hatred which attaches to the 
levying heavy, mostly ill-apportioned, taxation upon an impoverished 
people. Their wisest measures, probably, as beyond the political 
economy of the age, would be arraigned as the most cruel and iniqui- 
tous ; yet they were unable or unwilling to decline these perilous 
dignities, by which, honestly or dishonestly, they obtained great op- 
portunities of advantage, and stored up wealth to themselves, to be 
the righteous or unrighteous pretext for the plunder by the sovereign 
whom they served; or the vengeance of the people whom they 
stripped. In them the possession of wealth was sufficient proof of 
extortion and iniquity. At all events, they were usurers ; and 
whether they exercised usury on what might now be called fair or 
unfair terms, usury was in itself a sin and a crime. Charlemagne 
even promoted them to higher honors, and sent one of their number, 
Isaac, as his ambassador to the magnificent Caliph Haroun Alraschid. 
Under Louis le D^bonnaire, or the Pious, their privileges were in- 
creased. They were even protected in their slave trade. They were 
confirmed in their property and rights, and were given the full and 
free privileges of their citizenship, including the free observance of 
their law. 

These privileges excited the jealous indignation of Agobard, Arch- 
bishop of Lyons, who endeavored to curtail them ; but without avail. 
The court turned a deaf ear to his appeals, and sent him back to his 
diocese. His efforts were followed up by his successor, Amilo, Arch- 
bishop of Lyons, in the reign of Charles the Bald, who energetically 
strove, and with better success, to renew the persecution of the Jews. 
The Lyonese Jews began to feel the iron hand of the Church again, 
and the Councils soon began to launch their thunders against the 
whole race. In A. D. 845, the Council of Meaux reenacted the exclu- 
sion of the Jews from all civil offices, and in the same year this decree 
was followed by that of Paris, to the same effect. After the death of 
Charles the Bald, the Jews passed from the protection of the sovereign 
to the mercies of the countless petty sovereigns who arose under the 
feudal system, and whose means of raising money was to get it by 
plunder and massacre. In A. D. 897, Charles the Simple issued a 
decree, bestowing upon the Archbishop of Narbonne all the lands 
and vineyards possessed by the Jews, however acquired, in the whole 
county. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1011 

In Germany, until the time of the Crusades, their trade continued 
to prosper, and their relations to the Christian merchants seem in 

general to have been amicable. The traffic of Germany at 
£■ J?" this period was very largely in the hands of the Jews, who 

furnished the Church with gold and velvet and precious 
stones, and frankincense for her services ; the nobility with spices and 
rare wines for banquets, and gaudy clothing for their apparel ; all 
classes with drugs, which the Jews probably administered. Above 
all, the slave trade, the traffic in captives taken in war, was still 
active. The constant legislation on that subject, even to a late period, 
shows how deeply the Jews were concerned in this traffic, which in 
those days brought much property and little discredit to the Jew, 
thus dealing to Christians some revengeful satisfaction for their insults 
and wrongs. The Jews probably alone, the wealthier of them, had 
capital; they alone had mutual intelligence and correspondence; they 
frequented every fair and market ; they knew and communicated to 
each other the prices of commodities ; they were a vast mercantile 
firm spread through Europe, and having some, it might be precarious, 
connection with their brethren in the East, in Africa, in Spain, in 
most Mohammedan countries. Trade alone, active, prosperous trade, 
will account for their vast numbers, their dangerous wealth, even 
their rising intellectual importance. 

From this view, w T e turn to a sadder spectacle — the rapid progress 
of the Iron Age of Judaism, which, in the East and in the West, 
gradually spread over the Jewish communities, till they sank again 
to their bitter, and, it might almost seem indefeasible, inheritance of 
hatred and contempt. They had risen but to be trampled down by 
the fiercer and more unrelenting tread of oppression and persecution. 
The world, which before seemed to have made a sort of tacit agree- 
ment to allow them time to regain wealth that might be plundered 
and blood that might be poured forth like water, now seems to have 
entered into a conspiracy as extensive, to drain the treasures and the 
blood of this devoted race. 

Their hardships began in the East. Sultan Motavakel's 
H4"_ioV edict (a. d. 847), aimed at both Jews and Christians, has 

already been noticed. After his reign, the Caliphate in the 
East fell into confusion, split up into separate kingdoms under con- 
flicting sovereigns. About this time Saccai was Prince of the Cap- 
tivity. Towards the middle of the tenth century (a. d. 934), David 
ben Saccai held that high office. Under David ben Saccai, the Resch- 
Glutha resumed the pomp, title, and independence of a king. The 



1012 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Jews boast that, while his weaker ancestors had condescended to pay 
tribute, David refused that humiliating act of submission. But it 
was the feebleness of the Caliphate under Muctador, rather than the 
power of the Peseh-Glutha, which encouraged this contumacy. It has 
been conjectured that the interval during both these periods, from 
A. D. 817 to about A. D. 916, was filled by a line of hereditary princes. 

The high office of Master of the Schools seems to have been united 
to that of the Prince of the Captivity, in the person of Scherira, who 
ruled and taught with universal admiration in the School of Pherutz 
Schabur from A. D. 967 to A. D. 997. Pherutz Schabur was a city 
five miles from Babylon. It is asserted, no doubt with the usual 
Jewish exaggeration, that this city was inhabited by 900,000 Jews. 
At the end of thirty years, Scherira felt the approach of age, and asso- 
ciated his son Hai in the supremacy. But the term of this high office 
drew near. A violent and rapacious sovereign, Ahmed Kader, filled 
the throne of the Caliphs. He cast a jealous look upon the powers 
and wealth of this vassal sovereign. Scherira, now one hundred 
years old, and his son Hai, were seized either with or without pretext, 
their riches confiscated, and the old man hung up by the hand. Hai 
escaped to resume his office, and to transmit its honors and its dangers 
to Hezekiah, who was elected Chief of the Captivity. But after a 
reign of two years, Hezekiah was arrested with his whole family by 
the order of the Caliph, Abdallah Kaim ben Marillah (a. d. 1036). 
The Schools w r ere closed. Many of the learned fled to Egypt or 
Spain (the revulsion in Spain under the Almohades had not yet taken 
place) ; all were dispersed. Among the rest, two sons of the unfortu- 
nate Prince of the Captivity effected their escape to Spain, while the 
last of the House of David (for of that lineage they fondly boasted), 
who reigned over the Jews of the Dispersion in Babylonia, perished 
on an ignominious scaffold. 

The Jewish communities in Palestine suffered a slower but more 
complete dissolution. Benjamin of Tudela (a. d. 1160-1173) gives 
us an account in the twelfth century of the few Jews who still clung 
in poverty and wretchedness to their native land. In Tyre he found 
400 Jews, glass-blowers. The Samaritans still occupied Sichem ; but 
in Jerusalem there were only 200 descendants of Abraham, almost 
all dyers of wool, who had bought a monopoly of that trade. Ascalon 
contained 153 Jews; Tiberias, the seat of learning and of the kingly 
patriarchate, but 50. In the Byzantine Empire, according to the 
same authority, the numbers of the Jews had greatly diminished. 
Corinth contained 300 Jews ; Thebes, 2000 silk-workers and dyers. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1013 

Two hundred cultivated the gardens at the foot of Parnassus. Patras 
and Lepanto contained a small number; Constantinople, 2000 silk- 
workers and merchants, with 500 Karaites. They inhabited part of 
Pera, were subject to the ordinary tribunals, and were often treated 
with great insult and outrage by the fanatic Greeks. 

We now pursue our dark progress to the West, where we find all 
orders gradually arrayed in fierce and implacable animosity against 
the race of Israel. Every passion was in arms against them. The 
monarchs were instigated by avarice; the nobility by the warlike 
spirit generated by chivalry ; the clergy by bigotry ; the people by all 
these concurrent motives. Each of the great changes, which were 
gradually taking place in the state of the world, seemed to darken 
the condition of this unhappy people, till the outward degradation 
worked inward upon their own minds. Confined to base and sordid 
occupations, they contracted their thoughts and feelings to their sta- 
tion. Individual and national character must be endowed with more 
than ordinary greatness if it can long maintain self-estimation after it 
has totally lost the esteem of mankind; the despised will usually be- 
come despicable. 

In that singular structure, the Feudal System, the Jews alone 
found no proper place. They were a sort of outlying caste in the 
midst of society, yet scarcely forming a part of it ; recognized by the 
Constitution, but not belonging to it; a kind of perpetual anomaly in 
the polity. Their condition varied according to the different form 
which the feudal system assumed in different countries. In that part 
of Germany which constituted the Empire, the Jews, who were 
always of a lower order than their brethren in Spain and in the south 
of France, were in some respects under the old Roman law. By this 
law their existence was recognized, their freedom of worship in their 
synagogues was permitted, and they were exempted from military 
service — they were regarded as too degraded to engage in the noble 
profession of arms. The whole Jewish community were considered 
the especial servants of the Imperial Chamber, that is, the Emperor 
alone could make ordinances affecting the whole body, and the whole 
body could demand justice or make appeal to their liege lord. But 
this imperial right would not have been recognized by the great vas- 
sals as allowing the Emperor to seize, punish, plunder, or in any 
manner interfere with the Jews domiciliated in their several feuds. 
In fact, while the community was subject to the liege lord, the great 
feudatories and the free cities either obtained by charter, of which 
there are numerous instances, or assumed with a strong hand, or were 



1014 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

persuaded by the Jews themselves, to accept dominion over the Israel- 
itish inhabitants of their domains. The high and remote tribunal of 
the Emperor would afford inadequate protection for any oppressed 
Jew; he was glad to have a nearer and more immediate court of ap- 
peal. Travelling, as the Israelites perpetually did, from town to 
town, from province to province, the fierce baron might respect the 
passport, which was always absolutely necessary, of some powerful 
noble, some princely bishop, or some wealthy community of burghers, 
while he would have smiled in scorn at the general imperial edict for 
allowing the Jews to pass unmolested. In some cities, as in Worms, 
there were regular officers appointed to protect the Jews, who could 
not perform any of their ceremonies or processions in public without 
these guardians to shield them from the violence of the populace. In 
France and in England they were the property of the King, who fre- 
quently granted them to favorites, like lands, resumed them, and 
treated them altogether as goods pertaining to the crown. In Italy, 
at least in the South, besides the doubtful protection of the Emperor, 
they acknowledged the more powerful authority of the Pope. They 
were supposed to be in some manner under the special jurisdiction of 
the See of Rome. In the Norman kingdom of Naples the feudal 
system soon makes its appearance. Sichelgaite, wife of Roger, Duke 
of Apulia (son of Robert Guiscard), bequeaths the revenue of the 
Jews in the city of Salerno to the Church of Our Lady. Duke 
Roger makes over the Jewry and all the Jews, except those of his 
proper domain, to the Archbishop of Salerno. In the South of France 
they seem to have been considered as a kind of foreign vassals of the 
great feudatories ; in the North, of the King. For while the edicts 
of the sovereign for their expulsion and read mission into the land 
were recognized in the North, they seem to have been executed either 
imperfectly or not at all in the South. The general effect of the feu- 
dal system was to detach the Jews entirely from the cultivation of the 
soil, though it worked more slowly in some countries — in the south 
of France and in Spain — than in others. They could not be lords, 
they were not serfs, — they would not serve, or by the older law were 
exempted from military service to their lords. But this almost extra 
legal protection under the great vassals was of course subject to every 
caprice of the lawless and ignorant petty chieftains who exercised 
these local sovereignties. It was obtained only by proving to the 
liege lord that it was his interest to protect ; and his eyes, blinded by 
ignorance and perhaps bigotry, could only be opened to his real in- 
terests by immediate and palpable advantages. The Jew must pay 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1015 

largely for precarious protection ; he was only tolerated as a source 
of revenue, and till almost his life-blood was drawn, it would be 
difficult to satisfy the inevitable demands of a needy and rapacious 
master. The Jew thus often became a valuable property ; he was 
granted away, he was named in a marriage settlement, he was be- 
queathed, in fact he was pawned, he was sold, he was stolen. Per- 
mission to the Jew to employ his industry for his own profit implied 
a share in that profit to the lord. Even churchmen of the highest 
rank did not disdain such lucrative property. 

Chivalry, in spite of the benefits which it conferred upon the 
character and institutions of modern Europe, was a source of almost 
unmitigated wretchedness to the Jew, unless in so far as the splendor 
which the knight might display in his arms and accoutrements was a 
lucrative source of traffic. Though the Jew made a good profit on 
the arms of the knight and the jewels with which that personage 
decked his lady-love, and often held him in his power by reason of 
debts contracted for such purposes, his own condition was not bettered. 
The knight was bound by the tenure of his rank to hate and despise 
the Jew. Religious fanaticism was inseparable from chivalry. The 
knight, as he could not prevent the sufferings of his Saviour, felt 
bound to revenge them, and held the Jew of his own time responsible 
for them. The only refuge of the Jew from the hatred of the knighc 
was in his contempt. The knight was not suffered to profane his 
sword with such vile blood; it was loftier revenge to trample him 
under foot. The lower classes imitated the hatred, but not the for- 
bearance of their betters, and eagerly strove to show their zeal for the 
religion of Christ by persecuting the Jew — often by slaying him. 

The power of the clergy, no doubt, tended greatly to increase this 
detestation against the unhappy Jew. Their breath was never want- 
ing to fan the embers of persecution. There were exceptions to the 
rule, it is true ; and of all European sovereigns, the Popes, with some 
exceptions, have pursued the most generous policy towards the Jews. 
Innocent III. began by protecting them, but their wealth, power, and 
influence in France at length aroused his jealousy, and he set his face 
sternly against them. In Italy, and even in Rome, the Jews have 
been more rarely molested than in other countries. They have long 
inhabited in Rome a separate quarter of the city, but this might have 
been originally a measure at least as much of kindness as contempt — 
a remedy against insult rather than an exclusion from society. In 
the remote provinces it is to be feared that religious animosity wad 
often aggravated by that hatred which unprincipled men feel towards 



1016 HISTORY OP THE BIBLE. 

those who possess the secret of their crimes. The sacred property of 
the Church was still often pawned by the licentious monks or clergy. 
No one would dare to receive the sacred pledge but a Jew, who thus 
frequently became odious, not only as an importunate creditor, but as 
exposing, by clamorous and public demands of payment, transactions 
never meant to meet the light. 

In many cases it was religion itself which seemed to the Christian 
clergy to impose the duty of persecution. In Beziers, at the begin- 
ning of the Holy Week (of the week during which the sufferings of 
the Redeemer on the cross and his divine patience were represented, 
in symbol and in language, to the eyes and to the heart of the be- 
liever, not forgetting his sublime words of prayer for his enemies, even 
the Jews), it was an ancient usage to pelt the Jews with stones — a 
perilous licence for a fierce rabble. The preacher on that day urged 
his people to perform this act as a religious duty. The bishop who 
put down this practice, Raymond, of Trincavel, was accused of having 
been bribed ; no other motive could be suggested for this act of 
humanity, justice, and piety. 

Avarice and usurious practices were charged against the race of 
Israel, and not without justice. In the nation and in the individual 
the pursuit of gain, as the sole object of life, must give a mean and 
sordid cast to the character. To acquire largely, whether fairly or not, 
was the highest ambition of the Jew, who rarelv dared or wished to 
spend liberally. All the circumstances of the times contributed to 
this debasing change. The more extended branches of commerce were 
almost entirely cut off. Their brethren in the East had lost their 
wealth ; the navigation of the Mediterranean was interrupted by the 
Norman pirates ; the slave trade had entirely ceased or was prohibited, 
as well by the habits of the times as by law. In the cities and free 
towns they were excluded, by the jealous corporate spirit, from all 
share in the burghers' privileges. The spirit of the age despised 
traffic, and the merchant is honorable only where he is held in honor. 
The Jews, no doubt, possessed great wealth ; what was extorted from 
them is ample proof of the fact, and some of them by stealth enjoyed 
it; but even the wealthiest and most liberal were often obliged to put 
on the sordid demeanor and affect the miserable poverty of the poor 
peddler of their own nation, whose whole stock consisted in his pack 
of the cheapest portable articles. 

The necessity of perpetual deception could not but have a baneful 
effect on the manners and mind of the people. Their chief trade seems 
to have been money-lending, of which, till they were rivalled and 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. lOH 

driven out of the open market by the Lombards, they were the sole 
possessors. This occupation was not likely to diminish either their 
own sordid meanness or their unpopularity. The ignorance of the 
age denounced all interest for money alike as usury. The Jew was 
judged out of his own law, and all the scriptural denunciations against 
usury were brought forward, especially by the clergy, to condemn a 
traffic of which they felt and submitted to the necessity. The con- 
demnation of usury by the Church as unlawful contributed, with the 
violence of the times, to render the payment of the usurer's bond 
extremely insecure. He argued, not unfairly, that the more preca- 
rious, the greater ought to be his gains ; he took refuge in fraud from 
violence and injustice. Society was at war with the Jew. Some sud- 
den demand of tribute, or some lawless plunderer, would sweep away 
at once the hard-wrung earnings of years ; the Jew, therefore, still 
practised slow and perpetual reprisals, and reimbursed himself from 
the wants of the needy for his losses from the violent. Demolish his 
secret hive, like the ant, the model suggested by his wise king, he 
would reconstruct it again, and ever at the expense of his enemy. It 
was, generally throughout the world, the Christian, who, according to 
our universal Master of nature, would spit upon and spurn the Jew ; 
and the Jew, who, when he found his advantage, would have the 
pound of flesh nearest the heart of his bondsman. It was a contest 
of religious zeal which had degenerated into the blindest bigotry, and 
associated itself with the most ferocious and unchristian passions against 
industry and patience, which had made a forced but intimate alliance 
with the most sordid craft and the most unfeeling avarice, to the utter 
extinction of every lofty principle of integrity and honor. 

Attempts were constantly made to restrict the exactions of the Jews 
from the poor ; they were prohibited from taking in pawn the tools of 
the artisan and the implements of husbandry. By a law of Philip 
Augustus the interest on loans was limited to two deniers per week on 
the livre ; this would amount to above forty per cent. Later the rate 
of interest was doubled, for it was found that the debtor was compelled 
by the Jew to inscribe a larger sum than he actually borrowed. 
Interest on debts was generally limited to the year, to prevent — which 
it did not do — all accumulation. The weekly interest was manifestly 
intended for the debts of the poor. There is a very curious parch- 
ment roll in the French royal archives, according to which (probably 
during one of the expulsions of the Jews) certain inhabitants of the 
small town of Vitry, about five hundred, claimed sums said to have 
be^en extorted from them by the Jews to the amount of eight hundred 



1018 HISTORT OF THE BIBLE. 

and forty-four livres nine sous. These may show how widely these 
exactions spread, and how they affected the poorest classes of society. 
It shows, too, the utter insecurity of all these debts, and that the 
Jews, almost the only holders of that rare commodity — money — could 
hardly be expected to refrain from making as rich a harvest as pos- 
sible during their short gleam of broken sunshine. 

The first scene in the tragic drama of the Iron Age of Judaism in 
the West is laid in a country where we should least expect to find it> 
the Arabian kingdom of Grenada. It took place when the Golden 
Age was in all its brightness — a foreshadowing of darkness to come. 
It was brought on by the imprudent zeal of the Jews. The nation 
was in the highest degree of prosperity and esteem. Rabbi Samuel 
Levi was at once prince of his own nation and vizier of the king, 
Mohammed ben Gehwar, when one of the Wise Men, Joseph Hallevi, 
attempted to make converts among the Moslemites. The stern or- 
thodoxy of Islamism took fire, the rash teachers were hanged, the race 
persecuted, and fifteen hundred families, of whom it was said that he 
who had not heard of their splendor, their glory, and their prosperity, 
had heard nothing, sank into disgrace and destitution. 

A few years after, the Christian monarch, Ferdinand the Great, as 
though determined not to be outdone in religious zeal by his rival, the 
Moslemite king, before he undertook a war against the Moors, deter- 
mined to let loose the sword against the Jews in his own territories. 
To their honor the clergy interfered, prevented the massacre, and 
secured not only the approval of their own consciences, but likewise 
that of the Pope, Alexander the Second, who, citing the example of 
his predecessor, Gregory the Great, highly commended their hu- 
manity. The sterner Hildebrand assumed a different tone; he re- 
buked Alfonso the Sixth for having made laws restoring to the Jews 
certain rights, submitting, as the Pontiff declared, the Church to the 
synagogue of devils. During this whole period of contest between the 
Christians for the recovery of Spain, and the Mussulmans in their des- 
perate defence of their conquests, the Jews stood on a perilous neutral 
ground. Their creed was obnoxious in different degrees to both. IF 
they could have lived a peaceful life, they were disposed to submit 
quietly to the conqueror, but their wealth tempted the cupidity of 
both ; both were inclined to employ them in the unpopular but lucra- 
tive functions of financiers and tax-gatherers; and their own propen- 
sities to gain induced them to undertake these offices under Christian 
or Mohammedan rulers. 

The Crusades affected the Jews strangely. They must have been 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1019 

overwhelmed with astonishment at the spectacle of Christians fighting 
for the conquest of that land which they looked upon, with unwaver- 
ing hope, as the future kingdom of their own race under their Mes- 
siah ; but they quietly concealed their feelings, and applied themselves 
to the task of providing equipments for the warriors of the Cross. Out 
of these bargains they no doubt made large gains. Arms and money 
must be had for the crusader, and the merchant or usurer might dic- 
tate his own terms. No knight could stay at home with honor ; and 
nothing was too valuable, too dear, or too sacred, but that it might be 
parted with to equip the soldier of the Cross. 

But gain was not all that the Crusades brought to the Jews. 
When the immense mob of undisciplined warriors, called the Army 
of the Cross, led by Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless, and 
under the guidance of a goose and a goat, assembled near the city of 
Treves, a murmur rapidly spread through the camp, that while they 
were marching to recover the sepulchre of Christ from the infidel, 
they were leaving behind the wretches who had crucified him ; and 
with one impulse the army rushed into the city, and began a relent- 
less pillage, violation, and massacre of every Jew they could find. 
In this horrible day men were seen to slay their own children, to save 
them from the worse usages of these savages. Women, having de- 
liberately tied stones around themselves that they might sink, plunged 
from the bridge, to save their honor and escape baptism. Their 
husbands had rather send them to the bosom of Abraham than leave 
them to the mercy, or rather the lustful cruelties, of the Christians. 
The rest fled to the palace of the bishop, Engelbert, as a place of 
refuge, but he sternly refused protection to any except upon their 
recantation of their faith and submission to baptism. The same 
bloody scenes were repeated in Metz, in Spiers, in Worms, in May- 
ence, in Cologue. The holy army passed on ; everywhere the tracks 
of the Crusaders were deeply marked with Jewish blood. A troop 
under Count Emico carried these outrages to the cities on the Maine 
and the Danube, even as far as Hungary, where the influence of the 
king, Coloman, could not arrest his violence. The Emperor Henry 
the Fourth seems to have been the only person who saw the atrocity 
of these massacres ; in an edict issued from Ratisbon, he permitted 
such Jews as had been baptized by force to resume their religion, and 
ordered their property to be restored. At this period, many took 
refuge in Silesia and Poland. It is said that upon the capture of 
Jerusalem by Godfrey of Boulogne, all the Jews in the Holy City 
were put to the sword by the Christian conquerors. 



1020 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Half a century later, another storm burst upon this unhappy race. 
The Monk Rodolph passed through the cities of Germany to preach 
the duty of wreaking vengeance on all the enemies of God. The 
terrible cry of " H E P," the signal for the massacre of the Jews 
(supposed to be an abbreviation of " Hierosolyma est perdita " — 
Jerusalem is lost), ran through the cities of the Rhine. The Jews 
knew who were included under the fatal designation of Christ's 
enemies ; some made a timely retreat, but frightful havoc took place 
in Cologne, Mayence, Worms, Spiers, and Strasbourg. They found 
an unexpected protector in the holy St. Bernard, who openly repro- 
bated these barbarities, and, in a letter to the Bishop of Spiers, 
declared that the Jews were neither to be persecuted nor put to death, 
nor even driven into exile. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny, 
took the opposite side, and strongly urged the king of France to give 
up the Jews in his realm to general pillage. The German Jews suf- 
fered greatly during the second Crusade, owing to the absence of 
their legal protector, the Emperor Conrad, in the Holy Land, and in 
spite of the intervention of the Pope in their behalf. An attempt to 
raise the old terrible cry of " Hep," before the Crusade of Frederick 
Barbarossa, was put down by the stern vigor of the emperor. The 
Pope, Eugenius the Third, espoused the same humane part; and it 
has been conjectured that his release of all debts due to Jewish 
usurers was a kind of charitable injustice, to diminish the general 
odium against this unhappy people. The turbulent Rodolph was 
shut up in his cloister. 

In France the Jews were numerous and wealthy. They boast that 
they were as numerous as when they went forth from Egypt. In the 
South they were especially flourishing, and their prosperous schools 
and splendid synagogues were famous. Here they were more mingled 
with the people, and were not entirely dispossessed of their landed 
property. In the North they were spread throughout the country; 
they were to be found in every large city and town. But Paris was 
their headquarters. That they possessed in Paris and its neighbor- 
hood, lands, houses, meadows, vineyards, barns, and other immovable 
property, was sadly shown when the edict for the confiscation of all 
these possessions was issued. It is said by Monkish writers that they 
owned half Paris. 

The people hated them. Almost everybody owed them money. 
Even the king and the great nobles were their debtors. The lavish 
expenditure caused by the Crusades, and the heavy exactions of the 
government, had made it necessary to raise money on any terms. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1021 

Thus the Jews had a hold upon almost all the estates of the country; 
they had mortgages on half Paris. Even the clergy pawned the 
sacred vessels, and the reliques of their churches, to raise money for 
their expensive pleasures. Thus ground down by the extortions of 
the Jews, the people revenged themselves by charging them with the 
most blasphemous and sanguinary crimes. They were accused of 
horribly profaning the sacred vessels which they held in pawn, and 
of luring Christian children into their houses to slay them. Such 
was the state of affairs when the ambitious Philip Augustus came to 
the throne. He at once relieved his burdened subjects by an edict 
which confiscated all debts due to the Jews, and commanded them to 
surrender all pledges in their hands. Soon after this they were 
arrested and dragged to prison, while the royal officers took posses- 
sion of their houses. Later still, the king confiscated all their im- 
movable property, compelled them to sell their movables at a 
sacrifice, and banished them from the kingdom. He was deaf to all 
appeals for mercy. The decree was rigidly executed in the royal 
domains ; in the south of France the great vassals paid less respect 
to the royal edict, even where it had authority, and the Jews were 
still found in those provinces, sometimes in offices of trust. 

Less than twenty years later, the evil effects of these summary pro- 
ceedings having been felt, Philip Augustus consented to allow the 
Jews to return to France upon certain conditions, which, considering 
the times, were favorable to them. Twenty years later a royal edict 
prescribed a fixed method of regulating the money affairs of the Jews 
in the kingdom. The interest allowed was more than forty per cent. 
In the South the condition of the Jews was still comparatively pros- 
perous ; it was among the bitter charges of Pope Innocent the Third 
against Raymond, the heretical Count of Toulouse, that he employed 
Jews in high official situations. 

On the accession of Louis VIII. (a. d. 1223) he 
A D 1223 

gratified his impoverished barons with a new decree, 

which at once annulled all future interest on debts due to the Jews, 

and commanded the payment of the capital within three years, at 

three separate instalments. The Jews were declared attached to the 

soil, and assigned as property to the feudatories, or rather recognized 

as property belonging to them of right ; no one might receive or 

retain the Jew of another. 

Louis IX., though he strove to be just, was a cruel 
A d 1226 ' . 

sovereign to the Jews. He exerted himself from an 

early period of his reign to compel them to give up the practice of 



1022 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

usury, which he conscientiously regarded as unlawful. He abhorred 
equally the Lombard and Cahorsin usurers, but these being Chris- 
tians, he left the Church to deal with them, while he took the 
unbelieving Jews into his own hands. Soon after his accession, he 
recognized the property of each baron in his Jews, whom he might 
seize by force on the estate of another. In 1234, St. Louis, for the 
welfare of his soul, the souls of his father and all his ancestors, 
annulled one-third of all debts due to Jews. No bailiff might arrest 
or maltreat a Christian for any debt due to a Jew, or force him to 
sell his hereditaments. The king himself, in his zeal for the Crusades, 
had been obliged to borrow from the Jews on usurious terms. There 
is a singular struggle between the conscience and bigotry of the good 
king, and conscience gets the upper hand. He orders that measures 
be taken by trustworthy persons to make restitution even to the heirs 
of those usurers to whom debts are due. There is also a singular 
conflict between the intolerance and the piety of the saint. Though 
in one place the law states that the Jews are to be expelled from the 
realm and their property sold, yet their synagogues with their ceme- 
teries are to be restored, as though he would not cut them off from 
the worship of God. But policy or justice entered little into the 
minds of the populace. In 1239, they rose upon the Jewish quarter 
in Paris, and committed frightful ravages. Their example was fol- 
lowed in Orleans and many other considerable cities. The great 
vassals were not behind in lawless barbarity. The Assize of Brit- 
tany surpassed the worst fanaticism or injustice of sovereign or people. 
It was held by John the Red, at Ploermel. It complained that 
husbandry was ruined by the usurious exactions of the Jews. It 
banished them from the country, annulled all their debts, gave per- 
mission to those who possessed their property to retain it; it pro- 
hibited any molestation or information against a Christian who might 
kill a Jew; in other words, it licensed general pillage and murder. 

St. Louis next made war upon the religion of the Jews. He was 
convinced that the Talmud taught them not only impiety and super- 
stition, but also the damnable arts of sorcery, which they used in re- 
venge upoli the Christians. He therefore ordered all these volumes 
to be found in his realm to be seized and destroyed. Four and twenty 
carts-full of ponderous tomes were burned in Paris. Many of the 
Wise Men fled to secure their treasures of knowledge, and their wealth 
was seized by the king, who wanted money for his Crusade. 

Heretofore the Jew, notwithstanding his marked and indelible fea- 
tures, by adopting the common dress of the country, might escape the 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1023 

blind fury of the populace. To complete his outlawry, and to mark 
him out as an object of inevitable persecution, it was ordained that he 
should wear a sort of conspicuous outward brand upon his dress ; this 
was called the Bouelle. It was to be worn by both sexes, and con- 
sisted of a piece of blue cloth on the front and on the back of the 
garment. This device originated in the clergy. The Council of 
Lateran, under Innocent III., made its use general throughout Chris- 
tendom. It was enforced by other councils, as at Rouen and at Aries. 
It was finally made a law of the realm by St. Louis in the year before 
his death, who thus bequeathed to the miserable subjects, whom he 
had oppressed during his life, a new legacy of shame and calamity. 

In Germany the clergy and the people continued to per- 
194.1 12V7 secute tne Jews, while the emperors strove to protect them. 
Frederick Barbarossa was accused of too great leniency to 
them ; he called the Archbishop of Cologne to account for his mal- 
treatment of them. Frederick the Second was accused by the clergy 
of extending unchristian protection over this proscribed race. The 
emperor was informed that three Christian children had been found 
dead, at the time of the Passover, in the house of a Jew. " Let them 
be buried," coolly replied the philosophic emperor. But the emperor 
rendered the Jews a more effectual service by instituting an investiga- 
tion of the fact whether Jews were bound to murder children on that 
day. The cause was decided by grave theologians by the acquittal of 
the Jews from this monstrous charge. But our astonishment is great 
on finding Frederick's mortal antagonist, Innocent IV., one of the 
haughtiest bigots who ever sat on the Papal throne, issuing a bull to 
the archbishops, bishops, and nobles of Germany, in which he treats 
with scorn the figments of murders charged against the Jews, and 
brands as crimes the cruelties exercised against them. Of all the bulls 
issued from the Vatican this is one of the most extraordinary ; and 
the Pontiff is not free from the suspicion of wishing to usurp authority 
and display his supremacy over the subjects of the emperor. 

The Council of Vienna (a. d. 1267) urged still farther that most 
dangerous plan of persecution — the total separation of the Jews from 
the society, and consequently from the sympathies, of their fellow- 
men. The decrees of this council were addressed to the Archbishops 
of Salzburg and Prague, and to their suffragans, as well as to the pre- 
lates of Vienna. The Jew was ordered to wear the high-horned cap, 
under pain of an arbitrary fine by his liege lord. The Jew was to 
pay the parish priest not only tithes, but all dues which might have 
been demanded if his house had been occupied by a Christian. The 



1024 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Jews were not to frequent the stoves, the baths, or the shops of the 
Christians; they were not to have any Christian servants, man or 
maid, especially not nurses. Sexual intercourse with a Christian 
woman was severely punished ; in the man with imprisonment ; the 
woman was to be flogged out of the town. No Christian might re- 
ceive a Jew at a banquet, or eat and drink with Jews, or dance at 
their weddings, or buy meat of them, lest it should be poisoned. 
Charges of usury were to be tried by the ecclesiastical courts. When 
the host was carried through the streets, the Jews, at the sound of the 
bell, were to shut themselves up in their houses, and to close their 
doors and windows. Jews were forbidden to dispute upon religious 
subjects. They were not to prevent their wives and children from 
becoming converts to Christianity, and above all, were not to seek to 
convert Christians to Judaism, or to circumcise Christian proselytes. 
They were forbidden to build n,ew synagogues; they might repair 
those already in use, but neither make them larger nor more costly ; 
above all, not of a greater height. 

In Spain the petty sovereigns, who held the last of the 
iftso' n'ofi Moorish possessions, continued the persecution of the 

Jews ; but the first Christian monarchs protected them, 
and allowed them to remain in the country on liberal conditions. The 
protection of the sovereign was not always sufficient to save them from 
violence at the hands of the fanatical populace. Nearly a century 
passed in which the almost total silence of history, Jewish and Chris- 
tian, is the best proof of the peace and prosperity of the Jews under 
the Christian sovereigns. During this period the persecutions of the 
Mohammedan kings of Morocco caused multitudes of the Jews to 
leave Africa and settle in the rising kingdom of Portugal. 

In France the story of this race is still one of wrong. 
1 ' ' Philip III. enforced and increased the severity of the 

laws of Louis IX. During his wars in Languedoc 
(1296), Philip extorted large sums from the Jews on the charge of 
immoderate usury. 

Philip the Fair, the most rapacious and cruel of French sovereigns, 
did not leave the rich Jews in peace. His whole reign was a period 
of financial difficulty. He began his reign by expelling from his realm 
the Jews who had fled to Gascony from England, where they had 
already been plundered. After at first seeming to protect the Jews from 
the clergy and the Inquisition — a shrewd policy by which he allowed 
them to become richer and better worth plundering — he suddenly 
expelled the whole race from France (a. d. 1306). Their debts were 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1025 

confiscated to the crown, and all their vast possessions and splendid 
establishments, their goods and valuables, were sold for the benefit of 
the king. Their synagogues were converted into churches, their ceme- 
teries desecrated, their grave-stones torn up and used for building. 
Five years after, whether the law of expulsion had been imperfectly 
executed, or many of them had stolen back to the place of their former 
abode ; or whether, as the king declared, they had been allowed to 
return to prove their own debts for the advantage of the crown, a 
second total expulsion took place, and the soil of France was for a 
time secured from the profanation of the feet of the circumcised. 

The disorderded state of the finances of the country obliged Louis 
X. to readmit the Jews, who purchased the right to reside in France 
for twelve years at a heavy price. Their synagogues, cemeteries, and 
sacred books (except the Talmud) were restored to them. Philip the 
Long granted considerable privileges to the Jews on the royal domain, 
not the least of which were the abolition of their serfdom, and the 
granting of the right to bequeath their property to their nearest 
relative. The most singular of his laws was one which confiscated 
the whole property of the Jew converted to Christianity. Still, in 
spite of their privileges, they were often exposed to the rapacity of 
the nobles and even of the king himself, and to the cruelties of the 
clergy and the Inquisition. 

When that singular outbreak, known as the Rising of the Shep- 
herds, took place, the Jews suffered terribly from it. Under the 
strange idea that the Holy Land was only to be comquered by shep- 
herds and the poor in spirit, the shepherds and peasants of France 
flocked together in immense numbers, led by a monk and a priest. 
They marched across the kingdom, one party northward, to Paris, 
the other into Languedoc, their numbers increasing as they went. 
Being without arms, it was proposed to plunder the Jews and pur- 
chase arms with the spoils. The idea was at once acted upon. In 
their agony of distress, the Jews appealed to the king, who com- 
manded the Shepherds to let the Jews alone, and sent a few horse- 
men to protect the assailed race. The Shepherds laughed to scorn 
this feeble aid. The Pope, at Avignon, issued an anathema, equally 
ineffectual. The Jews were everywhere massacred and put to the 
torture. Where they could, they fled to the fortified places, often 
pursued and finally massacred by their cruel antagonists. These 
terrible scenes took place in almost all the cities of Languedoc. 

As a natural consequence of the Shepherd's Rising, a terrible pesti- 
lence swept over France in the ensuing years. Dark rumors were 
65 



1026 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

circulated that the Jews had poisoned the fountains and even the 
rivers of the kingdom and had in other ways brought the scourge 
upon the land. This ignorant belief was confirmed by the fact that 
the Jews were almost entirely free from the plague, owing, doubtless, 
to the cleanliness and carefulness as to food required of them by their 
ceremonial law. The Pope, John XX.-L, adopted the popular belief, 
and after denouncing their detestable sorceries and magic, commanded 
their Talmuds to be burned. The Papal sanction was thus given to 
the atrocities which followed. In many provinces, especially in 
Aquitaine, the Jews were burned without distinction. At Chinon, a 
deep ditch was dug, an enormous pile raised, and 160 of both sexes 
burned together. Many of them plunged into the ditch of their own 
accord, singing hymns, as though going to a wedding. Many women 
with their children threw themselves in to escape forcible baptism. 
At Paris, those alone were burned who confessed their crimes, but the 
richest were detained in prison to verify their confiscated debts. The 
king received from their spoils 150,000 livres. 

In the midst of this, Philip V. died (a. d. 1322), and the heir, 
King Charles IV., graciously pardoned the survivors, on condition 
of a large payment. They were then allowed, as an act of mercy, to 
collect what remained of their effects, and leave the country. 

A second pestilence, in A. D. 1348, completed the wretchedness of 
the few Jews that remained in this desolated land ; while themselves 
were perishing by hundreds, the old accusation of poisoning the wells 
was renewed, and th*e sword of vengeance let loose to waste what the 
plague had spared. 

Under the Regency of the Dauphin, notwithstanding the 
terrible condition of the kingdom, the Jews purchased the 
right to reenter France. The treaty was for twenty years, and was 
highly favorable to the Jews, who, outcasts, indeed, equally in the 
rest of the world, were content to purchase a limited period of resi- 
dence, precarious safety, with the chance of gain among a people who, 
from the king in his palace, the noble in his castle, to the insurgent 
peasant, looked on them with undisguised hatred, and were ready, on 
the first impulse, to renew all the horrors of former massacres, plun- 
der, and exile. 

For sometime the position of the Jews seemed materially improved, 
for the Crown protected them. Still the bigotry of the clergy con- 
tinued to fan the embers of popular hatred, and the clouds began to 
gather over the Israelites again. In 1380, during the administration 
of the Duke of Anjou, the people rose against the Jews, and pillaged 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1027 

and massacred them, in spite of the efforts of the government to pro- 
tect them. Meanwhile they bought an extension of their term of 
sufferance in France for ten years, at a cost of 3000 livres in gold ; 
they were heavily taxed ; and in 1378, they lent the king 20,000 
livres in gold, and covenanted to furnish 200 per week. It was from 
the wealth of the Jews that Paris began to rear her fortresses and 
lofty edifices. 

In spite of their burdens and trials, they increased in numbers and 
in wealth. Their usury increased the popular hatred of them, and at 
length roused all classes against them. On the 7th of September, 
1394, Charles VI., to their astonishment and dismay, ordered them 
to leave the country. He graciously accorded them permission to 
receive all debts due them and to sell their property. The cause of this 
change in the royal policy is probably to be sought in the malady of 
the unhappy king. His confessor was perpetually at his ear ; urging to 
the disordered and melancholy monarch the sin of thus protecting an ac- 
cursed people from the miseries to which they were deservedly doomed 
by the wrath of God. The nobles hated them as debtors, the people 
as fanatics. The queen was won over, and the advice of those few 
wise counsellors who represented the danger of depriving the country 
of the industry of such a thriving and laborious community, was 
overborne by more stern advisers. An accusation made without 
proof against the Jews of Paris, of the murder of converts to the 
Church, aggravated the popular fury. Four of the most wealthy 
were scourged two successive Sundays in all the cross-roads of Paris, 
and bought their lives at the price of 18,000 francs. The rest were 
allowed a month to wind up their affairs, and the whole Jewish com- 
munity crossed for the last time the borders of France, for a long and 
indefinite period of banishment. 

The history of the German Jews during the thirteenth and four- 
teenth centuries displays the same dreary picture of a people generally 
sordid, sometimes opulent, holding their wealth and their lives on the 
most precarious tenure. No fanatic monk set the populace in commo- 
tion, no public calamity took place, no attrocious or extravagant 
report was propagated, but it fell upon the heads of this unhappy 
caste. In Germany the Black Plague raged in all its fury, and the 
Jews were charged with causing it, and themselves enjoying compara- 
tive security amid the general desolation. Fatal tumults were caused 
by the march of the Flagellants, who, not satisfied with scourging their 
own bodies, atoned, as they thought, for their sins, by plundering and 
murdering the Jews in Frankfort and other places. Dark crimes were 



1028 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

everywhere charged against the Jews. The power of the emperor 
was ineffectual for their protection, even where exerted in their behalf. 
Still persecuted in one city, they fled to another, and thus spread over 
the whole of Germany, Brunswick, Austria, Franconia, the Rhine 
Provinces, Silesia, Brandenburg, Bohemia, Lithuania, and Poland. 
Oppressed by the nobles, anathematized by the clergy, hated as rivals 
in trade by the burghers in the commercial cities, despised and abhor- 
red by the populace, their existence is known by the chronicle, rarely 
of protective edicts, more often of their massacre ; in Prague, where 
no doubt their wild old cemetery, if its legends were carefully deci- 
phered, would tell terrible stories; in Nuremberg, Wiirzburg, and 
Bottenberg. 

There were Jews in England in the time of the Saxons. Egbright, 
Archbishop of York (a. d. 740), prohibited Christians from attending 
Jewish feasts. They are said to have purchased from William the 
Conqueror the right to settle in the country. William Bufus openly 
protected them, but made them pay dearly for his protection. From 
his reign they led a chequered existence, hated by the people, op- 
pressed by the sovereign, and persecuted by the clergy, until the 
reign of Henry II., who extorted considerable sums from them. The 
popular hatred was increased by dark tales of their atrocities, similar to 
those which were circulated on the Continent. This hostility broke out 
beyond all bounds at' the coronation of the brave Bichard the First. 
The whole nation crowded to the ceremony. Among the rest the 
Jews were eager to offer their allegiance, and to admire the splendor 
of the spectacle. They came in such apparel as suited the occasion, 
and were prepared with costly offerings to the new sovereign. But 
the jealous courtiers and the whole people demanded the exclusion of 
such dangerous guests from the royal presence, who were likely to 
blast all the prosperity of the reign by their ill-omened presence. It 
was dreaded that these notorious and wicked sorcerers would bewitch 
the king. Peremptory orders were issued that none should be ad- 
mitted. A few strangers incautiously ventured, supposing themselves 
unknown, into the Abbey ; they were detected, maltreated, and 
dragged forth, half dead, from the church. The news spread like 
wildfire. The populace of London rose at once, broke open the 
houses of the Jews, whom they suspected, and found to conceal, under 
a modest exterior, incalculable wealth; they pillaged and set fire on 
all sides. The king sent the chief justiciary, Sir Richard Glanville, 
to arrest the tumult. Proclamation was made that the Jews were 
under the king's protection ; they had supplied him largely with con- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1029 

tributions for his Crusade. Avarice and hatred were too strong for 
authority, and during the whole night the work of plunder and havoc 
went on. So great was the popular excitement that the king dared 
not punish the assailants of the Jews. 

The example of the people of London was followed elsewhere in 
the kingdom. All England was then swarming with fanatic friars 
preaching the Crusade, and fierce soldiers of all classes, who had taken 
up the cross. These burst like a whirlwind upon the Jews. At 
Norwich, at Edmondsbury, at Stamford, the Jews were plundered, 
maltreated, slain. At Lincoln they took timely warning, and, with 
the connivance of the governor, secured themselves and their more 
valuable effects in the castle. At York a terrible massacre took 
place. Neither age nor sex was spared. From 500 to 1500 men — 
the numbers vary — were put to death at York, in addition to the 
women and children. After Richard's return from captivity, he 
directed his attention to the aifairs of the Jews. The whole commu- 
nity was placed under certain statutes. The Jews were formally 
recognized as belonging to the crown ; and though the king contrived 
to wring some emolument out of every enactment, and though the 
laws were oppressive to the Jews, they gave them a protection which 
they had not enjoyed hitherto. 

John had probably many dealings with the Jews, previous to his 
accession to the throne, and began his reign by granting them many 
privileges, and protecting them from the violence of the people, 
though he made them pay for it. The favor of John was not likely 
to conciliate that of his subjects. All classes looked on the Jews with 
darker jealousy. The perpetual defamatory tales were repeated of 
their crucifying children ; and the citizens of London, probably en- 
vious of their opulence, treated them with many indignities, upon 
which the king sternly rebuked the mayor and barons of London. 

The very next year (a. d. 1210), however, he passed to the extreme 
of cruelty against the miserable Jews. Every Israelite, without dis- 
tinction of age or sex, was imprisoned, their wealth confiscated to the 
exchequer, and the most cruel torments extorted from the reluctant 
the confession of their secret treasures. The king gained 60,000 
marks by this atrocious proceeding. A second time demands equally 
extravagant were made, and these unhappy wretches, who paid so 
dearly for the privilege of being the vassals of the crown, were still 
further plundered by the barons as belonging to the king. Their 
treasures in London were seized, and their houses demolished to re- 
pair the walls, by these stern assertors of the liberties of the land. 



1030 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

The first act of the Guardians of the Realm under Henry III. was 
to release the Jews who were in prison, and to appoint twenty-four 
burgesses of every town where they resided, to protect their persons 
and property, especially against the crusaders. Though their condi- 
tion was generally improved, they were commanded to wear a dis- 
tinctive mark on their dress, two stripes of white cloth or parchment. 
This fatal distinction may have been intended in mercy to protect 
them as the king's property ; but it also exposed them to popular 
insult, or more than insult. All Jews landing in England were 
required to report themselves immediately and be enrolled by the 
justices of the Jews, and not to quit the kingdom without a passport. 

The Church pursued them with implacable enmity. The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury (Stephen Langton) and the Bishop of* Lincoln 
(Hugh of Wells) even forbade Christians, on pain of ecclesiastical 
censure, from selling to them the necessaries of life, and severe enact- 
ments were directed against them. The king, however, commanded 
all good subjects to pay no heed to the bishops' interdict. The clergy 
charged them with all manner of crimes, and at length the king with- 
drew his protection. On the occasion of the wars in France a sudden 
demand was made (a. b. 1 230) of a third of their movables to be paid 
into the exchequer. It was followed in two years by another, of 
18,000 marks; in 1236. by a third, of 10,000 marks. These enor- 
mous exactions were paid, and the king and people seemed to think 
that the Jews must have recourse to the black arts in raising the 
necessary funds. Other extortions followed from the king and the 
great nobles. 

A few years later the nation beheld the singular spectacle of a 
Jewish Parliament, regularly summoned by writs to the sheriffs. 
When this body met they were not allowed the privilege of debate, 
but were informed that the king needed 20,000 marks, and must 
have the money, and were commanded to go home and raise it as 
speedily as possible. It was to be assessed and levied among them- 
selves, and as this enormous charge was not immediately forthcoming, 
the collectors were seized, with their wives and children, their goods 
and chattels, and imprisoned. The next year a new demand of 8000 
marks was made, and enforced under severe penalties, and during the 
next three years 60,000 marks more were levied. 

How then was it possible for any traffic, however lucrative, to en- 
dure such perpetual exactions ? The reason must be found in the 
enormous interest of money, which seems to have been considered by 
no means immoderate at fifty per cent. Certain Oxford scholars 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1031 

thought themselves relieved by being constrained to pay only two 
pence weekly on a debt of twenty shillings. In fact, the rivalry of 
more successful usurers seems to have afflicted the Jews more deeply 
than the exorbitant demands of the king. These were Caorsini, 
Italian bankers, though named from the town of Cahors, employed 
by the Pope to collect his revenue. It was the practice of these per- 
sons, under the sanction of their principal, to lend money for three 
months without interest, but afterwards to receive five per cent, 
monthly, till the debt was discharged : the former device was to 
exempt them from the charge of usury. The king at one time 
attempted to expel this new swarm of locusts, but they asserted their 
authority from the Pope, and the monarch trembled. 

The king continued his extortions. As his distresses increased, 
and, as his parliament resolutely refused to maintain his extravagant 
expenditure, nothing remained but to drain still further the veins of 
the Jews. The office was delegated to Richard Earl of Cornwall, 
his brother. The Jews protested that as the Caorsini had ruined 
their trade, they could not meet the demand upon them, let the pun- 
ishment be what it might. Earl Richard treated them leniently, and 
accepted a small sum. The next year the king renewed his demands, 
and actually sold or mortgaged to his brother, the Earl of Cornwall, 
all the Jews in the realm for 5000 marks, giving him full power over 
their property and persons. 

About this time a new tale was spread over the country, of their 
having stolen a Christian child, named Hugh of Lincoln, and having 
crucified him after a mock trial, in which a Jew of Lincoln sat in 
judgment as Pilate, the whole being designed as a mockery of 
Christ's Passion. But the earth, the story went, could not endure to 
be an accomplice in the crime; it cast up the buried remains, and the 
affrighted criminals were obliged to throw the body into the well, 
where it was found by the mother. All the Jews in England were 
charged with having been present at Lincoln for this especial purpose. 
Parts of this story refute themselves, but it is possible that among 
the ignorant and fanatic Jews there might be some who, exasperated 
by the constant repetition of this charge, might brood over it so long 
as at length to be tempted to its perpetration. At all events, the Jew 
into whose house the child, it was said, had gone to play, tempted by 
promise of life and security from mutilation, made confession, and 
laid the blame upon his brethren. The king set aside the promise of 
mercy, and ordered him to be hanged. In his despair he accused all 
the Jews of the realm as accomplices in the act. Ninety-one of the 



1032 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Jews of Lincoln were sent to Londom as accomplices, and thrown 
into dungeons. The boy's mother appealed to the king for vengeance. 
Eighteen of the richest and most eminent of the Lincoln Jews were 
hung on a new gallows; twenty more were imprisoned in the Tower, 
awaiting the same fate. Hugh of Lincoln was canonized, and became 
one of the most popular Saints of England, and a source of consider- 
able profit to the church of Lincoln. 

The remainder of the reign of Henry III. was marked 

i^~r» * inr.,1 with severe oppressions of the Jews. The Barons' wars 
12o2-12o4. p # ri 

increased their burdens. The king was driven by the 
hopeless state of his finances to new extortions, and the barons plun- 
dered and even murdered them as wickedly and unconstitutionally 
belonging to the king. By some means they passed from the hands 
of the Earl of Cornwall back to the king, who, in 1261, again alien- 
ated them to Prince Edward, the king hoping by this gift to draw 
the prince from his alliance with the barons. The prince in his 
turn mortgaged them to certain of their dire enemies, the Caorsini, 
and the king ratified the assignment by his royal authority. The 
Jews were terribly persecuted — massacre and plunder being visited 
upon them in the principal cities — in these wars, but after the battle 
of Lewes their condition was improved, and they passed back to the 
property of the king. The wealth which he drew from the forfeited 
estates of the barons at the close of the war enabled the king to spare 
the Jews. Still their lot was hard. The last act of Henry III. dis- 
qualified them from holding lands or even tenements, except the 
houses of which they were actually possessed, particularly in the city 
of London, where they might only pull down and rebuild on the old 
foundations. All lands or manors were actually taken away; those 
which they held by mortgage were to be restored to the Christian 
owners, without any interest on such bonds. Henry almost died in 
the act of extortion ; he had ordered the arrears of all charges to be 
paid, under pain of imprisonment. Such was the distress caused by 
this inexorable mandate, that even the rival bankers, the Caorsini, 
and the friars themselves, were moved to commiseration. 

The accession of Edward I. brought no relief to the Israelites. 
Heavy exactions were made upon them by the king, and the penalty 
of non payment, even of arrears, was exile, not imprisonment. Par- 
liament prohibited all usury, and cancelled all debts on payment of 
the principal. The Jews were subjected to other restrictions; and 
many of them, thus reduced, resorted to a more dangerous and unlaw- 
ful occupation, clipping and adulterating the coin. In one day (Xo- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1033 

vember 17, 1279) all the Jews in the kingdom were arrested. In 
Loudon alone, 280 were executed, after a full trial ; many more in 
other parts of the kingdom. A vast quantity of clipped coin was 
found, and confiscated to the king's use. The estates of the guilty 
parties were granted by the king with a lavish hand. The people 
took the matter into their own hands, and maltreated the Jews to 
such an extent that the king was obliged to interfere in their behalf. 

The clergy, urged on by the Pope, Honorius IV., pushed the pqor 
wretches to the wall. They pulled down their synagogues, and other- 
wise oppressed them. Finally the king issued an edict expelling the 
whole race from England. Their whole property was seized at once, 
and just money enough left to discharge their expenses to foreign 
lands, perhaps equally inhospitable. The 10th of October, 1290, was 
the fatal day. The king benignantly allowed them till All Saints' 
Day ; after which all who delayed were to be hanged without mercy. 
The number of exiles is variously estimated at 15,060 and 16,511 ; 
all their property, debts, obligations, mortgages, escheated to the 
king. They suffered greatly in their passage out of the kingdom ; 
being sometimes plundered of what was left to them by the rapacious 
monarch, and frequently exposed to great physical suffering. 

The Jews of Spain were of a far nobler rank than those of England, 
of Germany, and even of France. In the latter countries they were 
a caste, — in the former, as it were, an order in the State. Prosperous 
and wealthy, they had not been, generally, reduced to the sordid 
occupations and debasing means of extorting riches, to which, with 
some exceptions, they had sunk in other countries. They were like- 
wise the most enlightened class in the kingdom ; they were possessors 
and cultivators of the soil ; they were still, not seldom, ministers of 
finance ; their fame as physicians was generally acknowledged, and no 
doubt deserved. The heads of the communities, whether as Princes 
or Rabbins, exercised not only religious, but civil authority also; 
they formed a full judicial tribunal in criminal as well as ecclesiastical 
affairs; adjudged not only in cases of property, but life; passed sen- 
tences beyond that of excommunication, sentences of capital punish- 
ment. Such was their condition at the commencement of their Iron 
Age in Spain. 

The darkness gathered more slowly upon them in this 

1212-1252 kingdom than elsewhere, but it came not the less surely. 

In the great Crusade of the Christian kings, of Castile, of 

Ara^on, and of Navarre, which won the crowning victory of Navas 

de Tolosa (a. d. 1212), the wild cry which had rung through the 



1034 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

cities of France and on the Rhine against the Jews, was raised in 
Toledo. The king and the nobles interposed, but it is said not be- 
fore 12,000 miserable Jews had been maltreated or fallen by the 
sword. 

Under Alfonso the Wise, of Castile, who began his long reign in 
1252, the condition of the Jews was bettered. He conceded to them 
certain lands; in Seville he gave them three mosques for synagogues. 
Their Jewry was enclosed by a wall which reached from the Alcazar 
to the Carmona gate. He bestowed other heritable possessions on 
opulent Jews. He encouraged the residence of learned and distin- 
guished Jews in the city. Later in his reign, when he drew up the 
great code of statute laws of the realm (the Siete Partidas), he was 
obliged to make concessions to the sterner spirit of the times, and to 
place heavy restrictions upon the Jews. They were forbidden to 
preach their doctrines publicly, or to endeavor to make proselytes. 
They were commanded (perhaps in mercy) to keep within their houses 
on Friday, on pain of being exposed to insult and injury from the 
excited Christians. They were excluded from all public offices. 
Christians were interdicted from living in familiarity with them. 
Jews were forbidden to have Christian servants ; and finally they 
were condemned to wear some mark on their dress distinguishing 
them from other vassals of the realm. The king was not really 
responsible for this last enactment, as the austere old Pope Gregory 
IX. had required of the kings of Spain the rigid enforcement of the 
decree of the Lateran Council respecting the dress of the Jews. On 
the other hand, there were more liberal clauses in this code concerning 
the Jews. They were protected in their religion, exempted from 
arrest on their Sabbath, except for murder or robbery, and every 
privilege open to a Christian was thrown open to converted Jews, the 
king being sincerely desirous of converting them to the faith of the 
Cross by fair means. On the whole, Alfonso was a good king to 
them. The usury laws were favorable to them in many respects. In 
Aragon, King James limited interest to 20 per cent., but in the 
kingdom of Navarre it was otherwise. Not only was usury alto- 
gether forbidden, but a bull was obtained from Pope Alexander IV. 
(a. d. 1254-1261) which empowered the king to seize all estates ob- 
tained by the Jews through what were called usurious practices, and 
restore them to the owners — in default of owners, to give them to the 
crown. In Navarre, too, the law of St. Louis prevailed, by which 
the Jew could recover only the capital, not the interest of his debt. 
At this period it is believed there were 3,000,000 of Jews in the 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1035 

kingdom of Castile alone, besides those in Aragon and Navarre. In 
the frontier provinces of Navarre and Catalonia, they suffered from 
the Shepherds' Rising, which spread through those parts. They were 
also accused of poisoning the fountains and causing the dreadful 
plague of leprosy which ensued. Still, on the whole, they were pro- 
tected by the wiser kings of Aragon and Castile from the growing 
jealousy of the nobles, and the implacable animosity of the clergy. 
Although the State was greatly embarrassed in its finances, from the 
reign of Alfonso the Wise to that of Alfonso XL in Castile, and 
during the same period in Aragon, neither kingdom resorted to the 
French and English method of plundering the Jews for relief. The 
king does not seem even to have assumed or exercised the power of 
taxing them at will, as his men, his feudal serfs. Under Alfonso XL 
of Castile, a Jew was the financial minister. He mismanaged the 
affairs, however, to such an extent that a great rise in provisions en- 
sued, and this was followed by insurrection. The king, by timely 
measures alone, averted proscription and a general outbreak of popu- 
lar fury against the whole race. 

Alfonso's son, Pedro the Cruel, also had a Jew for his treasurer. 
This king alternately petted and plundered the Jews, but on the 
whole showed them such favor that he was accused of being a Jew at 
heart. Some even went so far as to charge him with being a Jewish 
changling, asserting that King Alfonso's wife had borne a daughter, 
and that a Jewish boy had been substituted. His treasurer laid 
heavy burdens on the people, and raised the royal revenue to an 
enormous amount. The hatred with which the people thus burdened 
regarded him included his whole race. During the war between 
Pedro and Henry of Transtamare, the Jews suffered greatly. When 
Henry attempted to seize Toledo, at the outbreak of the struggle, his 
first act was to put to the sword the opulent Jews of that city. Over 
1000 fell in this massacre. In this contest the Jews are said to have 
borne arms in behalf of Pedro ; and it is certain that wherever Henry 
appeared the defenceless Israelites were mercilessly plundered and 
slain. During the latter part of his reign, however, Henry, from 
motives of policy, protected the Jews. 

After this time the Cortes seized every opportunity of invading 
the privileges of the Jews, and increasing their burdens. The nobles 
chafed under the mortgages by which their estates were encumbered, 
and endeavored in every way short of repudiating the debts to pre- 
vent the Jews from obtaining payment of the heavy sums due them. 
The popular hatred increased as the Jews were regarded as raising 



1036 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the prices of the necessaries of life. The clergy were their deadly 
and irreconcilable enemies, and lost no opportunity of urging the fana- 
tical populace to violence upon them. The monks and the Preaching 
Friars were especially fatal to them ; their fiery sermons kept the 
popular detestation at fever heat. 

There was at Seville a fierce popular preacher, Ferdinand 
Martiuez, Archdeacon of Ecija. During the reign of 
John I., his inflammatory harangues against the obstinacy and the 
usury and the wealth of the Jews, had excited the populace to some 
excesses. The Archbishop and the Chapter of Seville, to their honor, 
endeavored to allay the tumult, and the king commanded the arch- 
deacon to desist, but the bigoted priest continued his appeals to the 
fanaticism of the mob, until he brought about a terrible riot. The 
city authorities exerted themselves with vigor to put down the dis- 
turbance, but were defeated by the mob. The Jewries were attacked, 
forced ; and a general pillage, violation, and massacre took place of 
men and women, old and young. Fire and sword raged unresisted 
through these quarters of the city. The streets of noble Seville ran 
with blood, and the wild voice of the Archdeacon rose over all, and 
kept up the madness. Four thousand Jews perished in the massacre. 
The Jews appealed for justice to the Cortes, then in session at Madrid. 
That body acknowledged the justice of their appeal, and sent officers 
to Seville to arrest and punish the ringleaders in the massacre ; but 
the popular feeling was so strong against the Jews, that these officers 
were either unable or unwilling to do anything. Even the arch- 
deacon was unmolested. The Christians retained all their plunder, 
including two synagogues, which they converted into churches. The 
Jews, perhaps on account of their reduced numbers, reduced by the 
merciless massacre, were confined to one Aljama, that of St. Bar- 
tholomew. 

The example of Seville was followed elsewhere. In one day (August 
8, 1391) the populace rose in Cordova, in Valencia, in Toledo, in 
Burgos. Each of these cities, says a Spanish author, was another 
Troy. All the horrors of a town taken by storm were suffered by the 
Jewries ; plunder, rape, massacre, conflagration. Many Jews escaped 
by submitting to baptism. No one was punished for these outrages. 
Redress was impossible, for the whole Christian population was guilty. 
To destroy a whole city on account of the destruction of the Jews' 
quarters would have been to heap disaster upon disaster. 

In Aragon, fanaticism and a thirst for plunder roused the populace. 
The capital city of Barcelona was crowded with strangers to cele- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1037 

brate the Feast of St. Dominic (May 6, 1392) ; the day after, as if the 
worship of that stern Saint had hardened their hearts, the silent streets 
were roused with the wild cry of extermination against the Jews. 
The city was thronged, besides its own rabble, with sailors and galley 
slaves ; they broke into the Jewry, and perpetrated the most dread- 
ful cruelties. The houses were sacked, the streets heaped with dead 
bodies. Some of the desperate Jews demanded baptism ; that Chris- 
tian rite was hastily administered in the midst of pillage, violation, 
and murder. Late in the day, the city troops succeeded in putting 
down the outbreak, and a guard was placed over the Aljama. The 
next day the riot broke out again in a more terrible form. The Jews 
abandoned all their wealth, and fled to the Castello Nuevo. The 
castle was stormed ; all who would not submit to baptism were put to 
the sword. John I., king of Aragon, dared to punish these wicked- 
nesses. Twenty-six of the ringleaders were beheaded ; many were 
imprisoned, and only released on the supplication of the queen, and 
through the mercy of the sovereign. 

The Jews of Navarre suffered no less than those of Aragon. In 
Pampeluno, and the other cities of that kingdom, their houses were 
burned ; they were pillaged, massacred, compelled to baptism. 

Spain had throughout her borders destroyed these secret enemies, 
which, according to the notions of the day, preyed upon the wealth 
of the country, and heaped up in their secret hoards the riches which 
they extorted from the revenue of the king, the luxuries or warlike 
expenditures of the nobles, and the more grinding necessities of the 
indigent. To her astonishment and utter perplexity, Spain found 
herself poorer than before. Having destroyed the industry of the 
Jews, and having deprived them of all means of employing it with 
profit, the Christians threw upon themselves the charges hitherto 
shared with them by the Jews. " What," says a writer of the times, 
" became, in fact, of all the trade and commerce of Toledo, and 
Seville? What became of those rich marts in which the Jews accu- 
mulated the products of the East and West, the silks of Persia and 
Damascus, the skins of Tafilete, and the Arabian jewelry ? They 
burned the shops in the Aljamas at Valencia, Toledo, Burgos, Cor- 
dova, Seville, Barcelona, and the rents of the kings and of churches 
at once fell off. During the wars with the Saracens, the coffers of 
the Jews had been a ready resource to the kings — they were now 
empty. The utter ruin of the only industry and commerce in the 
kingdom by an idle populace, and a king and nobles who disdained 
all occupation but war, was not only a grievous- offence against hu- 



1038 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

manity, against the Gospel, against the laws of Spain, but it was pro- 
foundly impolitic, a prelude to that problem so fatally solved nearly 
a century later by the kings of Spain." 

The hatred of the clergy, emboldened by the escape of the persecu- 
tors of the Jews in the places already mentioned, pursued this un- 
happy people with unflagging energy. Missionaries were sent among 
them to convert them. The most successful of these, St. Vincent 
Ferrer, a man of the most earnest piety, succeeded, unintentionally it 
is believed, in stirring up the people of Valencia (July 1391) to such 
an extent that a riot ensued, in which the rabble forced and sacked 
the Jewish quarter, and slew 300 people. The synagogue was seized 
and converted into a Christian church. Many Jews in various parts 
of Spain submitted to baptism, to escape violence. Pope Benedict 
XIII. increased their burdens by a Bull of great severity. No Jew 
was to be physician, surgeon, shopkeeper, druggist, intendant, or mar- 
riage broker, nor to hold any public office which would mingle him 
up with Christians. He might not buy of or sell to Christians cer- 
tain viands, nor be present at any banquet, nor bathe in any common 
bath. He was not to act as steward or agent of Christians, nor teach 
any science, art, or trade in a Christian school. 

The civil laws had become as severe as the ecclesiastical : the Regent 
Queen Catharine had promulgated a famous ordinance secluding the 
Jews and Moors in their separate quarters in every city ; each Ghetto 
or Jewry was to be surrounded with a high wall, with only one gate 
of entrance. It rigidly prescribed their dress — a long mantle, reach- 
ing to the feet, without fringe, feather, or border of gold. It limited 
the cost of the cloth they wore to a low price. The Jewess who in- 
dulged in forbidden finery might be stripped of the whole to her shift. 
The Jews might not change their place of residence ; the magistrates 
might arrest any wanderers and send them back to their homes. They 
were neither to shave nor cut their hair. They were neither to prac- 
tice the veterinary art, nor to be carpenters, tailors, dressers of cloth, 
shoemakers, stocking-weavers, pelterers, nor butchers, — these, it is 
presumed, not to Christians. No Christian woman might on any 
account, lawful or unlawful, enter the Jewish quarter. The woman 
of character, if married, was fined 100 maravedis; if unmarried, she 
forfeited the dress which she wore. The loose woman was to be 
scourged, and turned out of the city, town, or hamlet. The Council 
of Zamora enforced with augmented rigor the bull of Benedict XIII, 
It annulled all the privileges of the Jews; they were only to be tole- 
rated at all because they were human beings. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1039 

John II. took the Jews under his protection, and shielded them, 
from even the cruelty of the Church ; and, during his long and dis- 
astrous reign, it might seem that they were with their 
wonderful vitality, quietly rising again to wealth and im- 
portance. This state of affairs lasted through considerable part of the 
fifteenth century. The clergy, often seconded by the nobles, watched 
every opportunity of increasing the number of their willing, more 
often enforced, converts. The populace were ever ready to obey the 
tocsin of their spiritual leaders, and to indulge, under their holy sanc- 
tion, their desire of plunder or revenge. During this period the old 
charges of sacrilege, crime, and sorcery were continually revived, and 
the unhappy victims put to death or tortured. 

During all this while a portion of the Jews had become to a great 
degree intermingled with the Christians of Spain. The " new Chris- 
tians," or converted Jews, had to a considerable extent intermarried, 
doubtless for their wealth, into the noblest families, which boasted the 
richest and purest Gothic blood. It was the bitterest reproach in later 
days to prove this indelible contamination, though there was scarcely 
a noble house in the land unimpeachably clear from this stain. The 
clergy strongly suspected, and it seems with good reason, that the new 
Christians were still Jews at heart ; and that, while they attended the 
teaching of the Church with regularity, they also practised in secret 
the observances of the Jewish law. 

This was the state of affairs when Ferdinand and Isa- 
1 . ' ' bella united the crowns of Castile and Aragon, an event 
which was the crisis of their fate to the unconverted, to a 
great extent to the converted Jews. The clergy, taking advantage of 
the bigotry of these sovereigns, prevailed upon them to introduce the 
Inquisition into Spain. For awhile they hesitated, but in this evil 
hour a work was published by some misguided Jew, reflecting on 
the government of Ferdinand and Isabella, probably on the Christian 
religion. This decided the question. In September, 1480, two Domi- 
nicans, Michael Morillo and John de St. Martin, were named inquisi- 
tors. Even the Cortes beheld with reluctance — the very populace 
with terror — the establishment of this dreadful tribunal ; and, as it 
were to enlist still worse passions in the cause, a third of the property 
of all condemned heretics was confiscated to the use of the holy office; 
another third was assigned for the expenses of the trial ; the last third 
went to the crown. The tribunal established its headquarters at 
Seville, and assumed at once a lofty tone; denouncing vengeance 
against all, even the highest nobles, if they presumed to shelter ofl'en- 



1040 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

ders from their justice. The dreadful work began. Victims crowded 
the prisons. Secret denunciations were encouraged ; not to denounce 
was a crime. We cannot pause to speak of the dreadful sufferings 
inflicted upon Christians by this accursed tribunal, whose admission 
into Spain must forever darken the fame of Ferdinand and Isabella. 
Our narrative relates to the Jews alone. The Inquisitors published 
an edict of grace, inviting all who sincerely repented of their apostasy 
to manifest their repentance ; in which case they might escape the con- 
fiscation of their property and receive absolution. If they allowed the 
time of grace to elapse, they incurred the severest penalties of the law. 
Many came in and surrendered, but a dreadful oath was extorted from 
them to inform against their more criminal brethren. In one year 280 
were burned in Seville alone ; 79 were condemned to perpetual im- 
prisonment in loathsome cells; 17,000 suffered lighter punishments. 

The heart sickens at the record of the terrible sufferings inflicted 
upon the Jews by the Inquisition and the " most Catholic " sovereigns 
of Spain. The Inquisitors published twenty-seven tests for detecting 
the backsliding of a New Christian into Judaism, which rendered him 
liable to the penalties of the*holy office. Among these were the ex- 
pectation of the Messiah ; the hope of justification by the law of Moses ; 
a reverence for the Sabbath, shown by wearing better clothes or not 
lighting a fire ; by observing any usage of their forefathers relating 
to meats; honoring the national fasts or festivals; rejoicing on the 
Feast of Esther, or bewailing the fall of Jerusalem, on the 9th of 
August; singing the Psalms in Hebrew without the Gloria Petri; 
using any of the rites, not merely of circumcision, but those which 
accompanied it; those of marriage or of burial, even of interring the 
dead in the burying-place of their forefathers. Contrary to the prac- 
tice of all tribunals, the criminal at the bar of the Inquisition was not 
informed of the name of his accuser, nor confronted with the wit- 
nesses. Death was the punishment for the offences mentioned. In- 
formers were encouraged to lurk in every city or village, and listen to 
every careless conversation. In some places the Inquisitors were not 
satisfied with burning the living ; their vengeance warred upon the 
dead. Sepulchres were broken open, and the bodies of suspected 
Jews, which had wickedly intruded themselves into consecrated ground, 
but had long slumbered in peace, and their souls gone to their account, 
were torn up and exposed to shame and insult. 

The Holy Office spread over Spain. Many of the New Christians 
fled to other countries. Some condemned for contumacy, ventured to 
fly to Rome, and to appeal to the Pope against their judges. The 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1041 

Pope himself trembled at his own act. He wrote to the sovereigns, 
complaining that the Inquisitors exceeded their powers. It was but 
a momentary burst of justice and mercy. Under the pretext of 
securing their impartiality, the number of Inquisitors was increased ; 
the whole body was placed under certain regulations ; and at length 
the Holy Office was declared permanent, and the merciless and heart- 
less Thomas de Torquemada placed at its head. The nobles and 
people resisted, and there ensued between all classes of the Spanish 
people, except the clergy, a contest in which the Inquisition triumphed. 
The laws and privileges of Spain were trampled under foot by the 
bloodthirsty Dominicans, encouraged and aided by the bigoted sove- 
reigns, and the darkest curse that ever blighted a nation was fastened 
upon the beautiful land. 

The unconverted Jews, however they might commiserate these 
sufferings, still, no doubt, in their hours of sterner zeal, acknowledged 
the justice of the visitation which the God of their fathers had per- 
mitted against those who had thus stooped to dissemble the faith of 
their ancestors. They imagined that they themselves, who had defied 
their adversary to the utmost, now enjoyed the reward of their holy 
resolution in their comparative security. But their turn came. In 
1492 appeared the fatal edict commanding all unbaptized Jews to 
quit the realm in four months; for Ferdinand and Isabella, having 
now subdued the kingdom of Grenada, had determined that the air 
of Spain should no longer be breathed by any one who did not pro- 
fess the Catholic faith. For this edict, which must make desolate the 
fairest provinces of the kingdom, of its most industrious and thriving 
population, no act of recent conspiracy, no disloyal demeanor, no 
reluctance to contribute to the public burdens, was alleged. The 
whole race was condemned on charges, some a century old, all frivo- 
lous or wickedly false, — crucifixions of children at different periods, 
insults to the Host, and the frequent poisonings of their patients by 
Jewish physicians. One of these charges was that they perverted 
back to Judaism their brethren who had embraced Christianity. One 
of the crucifixions charged against them, was alleged to have taken 
place as far back as 1250 — nearly two centuries and a half prior to 
the date of the edict, which was dated only nine days after the fall of 
Grenada. The Jews made every effort to avert their fate, even offer- 
ing to replenish the Treasury, which had been exhausted by the wars 
of Grenada; but in vain. The Dominicans, with Torquemada at 
their head, steeled the hearts of the king and queen against them. 
The unhappy race were required to choose between baptism and exile. 
66 



1042 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

For three centuries their fathers had dwelt in this delightful country, 
which they had fertilized with their industry, enriched with their 
commerce, adorned with their learning. There were few apostates 
among them. In a lofty spirit of self devotion, the whole race, vari- 
ously estimated at from 166,000 to 800,000, resolved to sacrifice 
everything rather than abandon their ancient faith. They were given 
four months to prepare for this everlasting exile. The unbaptized 
Jew found in the kingdom after that period was condemned to death. 
The persecutor could not even trust the hostile feelings of his bigoted 
subjects to execute his purpose ; a statute was thought necessary, pro- 
hibiting any Christian from harboring a Jew after that period. Many 
were sold for slaves ; Christendom swarmed with them. The wealthier 
were permitted to carry away their movables, except gold and silver, 
for which they were to receive letters of change or any merchandise 
not prohibited. Their property they might sell ; but the market was 
soon glutted, and the cold-hearted purchasers waited till the last in- 
stant, to wring from their distress the hardest terms. 

Their sufferings, as they passed out of Spain into countries equally 
inhospitable, were dreadful. They died in great numbers of sickness 
caused by their hardships; they perished with famine; they were 
abandoned by captains of vessels in which they took passage, on 
desert shores, where they were torn by wild beasts ; and even when 
set down on Christian shores, dying w r ith thirst, starvation, or disease, 
the bigoted monks refused to allow them to be succored until they 
agreed to submit to baptism. They were admitted into Rome, but 
there their own brethren received them with such inhospitality (fear- 
ful that the increased numbers would bring trouble upon the commu- 
nity) that even the profligate Pope Alexander VI. was moved with 
indignation. " This is something new/' he exclaimed ; " I had 
always heard that a Jew had ever compassion on a Jew." The Pope 
commanded the resident Jews to leave the Roman territory; but 
they bought the revocation of the edict at a high price. Those who 
passed over to Morocco suffered horribly at the hands of the people 
and the government. 

Many passed from Spain into Portugal, where some of their breth- 
ren were already settled. The new comers were allowed to pass 
through that country, in order to embark for Africa, but they were 
forced to pay a heavy price to King Joam II. for this privilege. 
Many were unable to quit the country, and lingered in it. All these 
were made slaves, — the youth were baptized by force, and drafted 
off to colonize the unwholesome island of St. Thomas. The new 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1043 

king Emmanuel commenced his reign by protecting the resident 
Jews of the kingdom ; but he married the daughter of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, and naturally was led to follow their example of cruelty. 
He named a certain day for all Jews to quit the kingdom, and ap- 
pointed certain ports for their embarkation. Before that time, he 
issued another secret order to seize all children under fourteen years 
of age, to tear them from the arms, the bosoms of their parents, and 
disperse them through the kingdom, to be baptized and brought up 
as Christians. The secret transpired, and, lest they should conceal 
their children, it was instantly put into execution. Frantic mothers 
threw their children into the wells and rivers, — they destroyed them 
with their own hands. The people, bigoted as they were, were 
horrified at the cruelty of the king, and assisted the Jews to conceal 
their children. By a new act of perfidy, Emmanuel suddenly re- 
voked the order for their embarkation at two of the ports he had 
named. Many were thrown back upon Lisbon, and the delay made 
them liable to the law. The more steadfast in their faith were 
shipped off as slaves, but the spirits of many were broken : on condi- 
tion that they might receive back their children, and that government 
would not scrutinize their conduct too closely for twenty years, they 
submitted to baptism. About ten years later, a New Christian de- 
tected a monk in an act of religious imposture. The monk was dis- 
playing a crucifix to the eyes of the wondering people, through a 
narrow aperture in which a light streamed — the light, he declared, 
of the manifest Deity. A converted Jew discovered a lamp ingeni- 
ously concealed behind the mysterious crucifix, and exposed the cheat. 
Enraged at this, the multitude, led on by the Dominicans, dragged 
the rash Jew to the market place and murdered him. This was 
followed by a furious assault on the houses of the Jewish converts, the 
Dominicans, with crucifixes in their hands, urging on the maddened 
mob. Men, women, and children were involved in a promiscuous 
massacre, — even those who fled into the churches, embraced the sacred 
relics, or clung to the crucifixes, were dragged forth and burned. 
The king was absent from Lisbon at the time ; on his return he pun- 
ished the ringleaders of the riot. 

In spite of the vigilance of the king, the Jews managed to carry 
away secretly immense sums from Spain. The gold and silver dis- 
appeared with them. This was not the worst blow to that country. 
The loss of industry was irreparable in a country where pride and 
indolence proscribed all such pursuits as base and sorbid, and where 
the richest body, the Church, contributed nothing, either directly or 



1044 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

by the improvement of the land, to the support of the State. "With 
the Moors and with the Jews vanished all the rich cultivation of the 
soil, and all internal and external commerce. Sultan Bajazet is re- 
ported to have said of Ferdinand, " You call this a politic king, who 
impoverishes his own kingdom to enrich mine." 

Still it is certain that in the Peninsula Judaism lurked in the 
depths of many hearts. Secret Jews are said to have gained high 
offices in the State, in the Church, and even to have sat on the tri- 
bunal of the Inquisition. Besides these, the lurid light of the Autos 
da Fe revealed the fact that undisguised Jews still lingered on the 
soil of Spain. At the burning of a young Jewish woman, Philip III. 
had the weakness to shudder. The Inquisitor declared that the king 
must atone for this crime by his blood. He was bled ; the pale 
guilty blood burned by the executioner. The records of the times 
relate numerous instances of the horrible cruelties practised upon the 
Jews by the Iuquisition. During the reign of Charles II., eighteen 
Jews, men and women, were burned in Madrid in a single day. 
All these atrocities were committed by a tribunal calling itself Chris- 
tian, and professedly in the name of Him who taught only mercy 
and love.* 

We have said little of the Jews of Italy. During the darker ages, 
if they attained not in Italy the same dangerous and distinctive opu- 
lence, neither were they exposed to the same cruel and sweeping 
calamities. The feudal system, so far as it was established in Italy, 
degraded them into the property of the lords. They were assigned 
over by one feudal sovereign to another, granted as gifts, made objects 
of bargain, sale, and merciless exactions. But the feudal system died 
out earlier and with more rapid dissolution in Italy than in the rest 
of Europe. The free cities assumed their independence, and in these 
the Jews seem generally to have lived in happy obscurity. The cities 
and the petty sovereigns were too perpetually occupied with wars 
within themselves, and wars with their neighbors, to take up any 
systematic policy concerning these scattered strangers ; and the Jews 
cared little, so they were left in peace, for Guelph, Ghibelline, Pope, 
or Emperor. Neither was religious zeal in the peninsula so easily 
inflamed, so frantic, or so bloodthirsty, as beyond the Alps. The cry 



* Thomas de Torquemada died in 1498, having been Chief Inquisitor about 
seventeen years. In that time he is said to have sent 8S00 victims to the stake ; 
to have caused 6500 to be burned in effigy ; and to have condemned 90,000 to 
other penalties, infamy, perpetual banishment, and confiscation. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1045 

of " Hep ! Hep ! " was not raised, or, if raised, but feebly and rarely, 
in the Italian cities; their streets did not run with Jewish blood. 

But the great cause of the comparative quiet and security of the 
Italian Jews was that they were not the sole, and, therefore, not the 
few envied and odious possessors of wealth. They did not monopo- 
lize commerce; and shared the usury trade with the Italians. The 
collection of the enormous revenues of the Papacy involved many 
complicated transactions, and the aid of the Jews was frequently 
sought in carrying them out. The Church dignitaries, especially the 
officers of the Papal Court, soon became such sagacious adepts in the 
financial practices of the Jews that they were debarred by their own 
acts from denouncing the Jew as the most rapacious of beings. On 
the expulsion of the race from France by Philip Augustus, many of 
the richest Jews took refuge in Northern Italy. They are said — 
though the fact is by no means certain — to have invented letters of 
change and credit, which their extensive correspondence and honor- 
able fidelity to each other rendered a safe means for these incipient 
dealings with the money market of Europe. However this may be, 
if the Jews enjoyed not the monopoly of money-making in Italy, they 
escaped the monopoly of detestation, and that which followed detesta- 
tion — persecution, pillage, sometimes massacre. 

The Popes, with a few exceptions, were more humane and Christian 
in their treatment of the Jews than any other European sovereigns. 
It is true they had not the same temptations to rapacity that the tem- 
poral rulers had. Their revenues were drawn from all Christendom, 
and they had no need to plunder. In Rome the Jews were, some 
few of them probably, of a higher, others of a lower class than else- 
where. The higher were obliged to content themselves with more 
moderate gains, and therefore with more moderate wealth, moderate 
at least as compared with that of the higher clergy, the officials of the 
Papal Curia, and the religious foundations. The lower probably 
kept up the hereditary and traditionary offices of peddlers and dealers 
in small wares, which they held during the old empire. Contempt 
and poverty would secure them against violent persecution. History 
and legislation, even the legislation of the Church, are totally or 
almost totally silent about the Italian, and especially the Roman, Jews 
during the ninth and tenth centuries. In those wild times of the law 
of the strongest, even Jews would not venture, or would be unable, 
to become perilously wealthy. In the eleventh century occurs one 
persecution. Some poor Jews were executed on account of an earth- 
quake. In the latter half of that century one family alone, but that 



1046 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

a renegade family, the Peter Leonis, having submitted to baptism, 
rose, during the strife between the popes and emperors, to great power, 
gave consuls, patricians to the city of Rome, and if not a pope, an 
anti-pope (Anacletus II.), who was crowned and for a time main- 
tained his authority in the Vatican. The haughtiest and noblest 
families of Rome did not disdain to ally themselves to the Jew by 
intermarriages with his sons and daughters. In the twelfth century, 
Beujamin of Tudela found the Jewish congregation at Rome (they 
amounted to only 200) held in respect, and exempt from tribute. As 
in other countries, the pope's (Alexander III.'s) steward and minister 
of private property was a Jew. Benjamin found Jews in other cities 
of Italy. The proscriptive edicts of the popes bore heavier on the 
Jews of other countries than those of Italy, though these were not 
always exempt from great burdens. 

During the pontificate of Alexander IV., there was a fierce perse- 
cution of the Jews in the kingdom of Naples. It is said to have been 
brought on by a quarrel between a monk and a Jew at Trani. The 
monk, worsted in the quarrel, hid a crucifix in a dungheap near the 
Jew's house, and pretending to have received a revelation from 
heaven, led the populace to the place, and found the sacred object. 
The Jews suffered severely ; some escaped by becoming Christians. 
The pope interfered in their behalf, but without doing them much 
good. The fraud of the monk was afterwards discovered, and the 
king banished him to one of the islands. 

Some of the popes tried to convert them by harsh measures ; others 
protected them in the enjoyment of their religion. The Jews, on their 
part, made reprisals by making proselytes of Christians. Clement 
IV., in a bull, acknowledged converts of both sexes to Judaism, and 
commanded the Inquisition to search out and punish both the apos- 
tates and the Jews who abetted them in such apostasy. Nicolas IV. 
renewed this bull in 1288. During the captivity of the popes at Avig- 
non their acts had more to do with the Jews of Provence and Lan- 
guedoc than those of Rome. Pope Martin V. protected them from 
religious and civil persecution. 

Proscribed in so many kingdoms of Europe, exiled from Spain, the 
Jews again found shelter under the protection of the Crescent. In the 
north of Africa the communities which had long existed were con- 
siderably increased. Jews of each sect, Karaites as well as Talmudists, 
are found in every part of that region. In many countries they de- 
rive, as might naturally be supposed, a tinge from the manners of the 
people with whom they dwell ; and, among these hordes of fierce 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1047 

pirates and savage Moors their characters and habits are impregnated 
with the ferocity of the land. In Egypt their race has never been 
exterminated; they once suffered a persecution under Hakim (a. d. 
1020), which might remind them of the terrors of former days, but 
they seem afterwards to have dwelt in peace; Maimonides was the 
physician of Saladin. But the Ottoman Empire, particularly its Eu- 
ropean dominions, was the great final retreat of those who fled from 
Spain. 50,000 are estimated to have been admitted into that country, 
where the haughty Turk condescended to look down on them with far 
less contempt than on the trampled Greeks. The Greeks were Yeshir, 
slaves ; they held their lives on sufferance ; the Jews, Monsaphir, or 
visitors. They settled in Constantinople and in the commercial towns 
of the Levant, particularly Salonichi. Here the Rabbinical dominion 
was re-established in all its authority ; schools were opened ; the 
Semicha, or ordination, was re-enacted ; and Rabbi Berab entertained 
some hopes of re-establishing the Patriarchate of Tiberias. The Os- 
manlis beheld with stately indifference this busy people, on one hand 
organizing their dispersed communities, strengthening their spiritual 
government, and laboring in the pursuit of that vain knowledge which, 
being beyond the circle of the Koran, is abomination and folly to the 
true believer, even establishing that mysterious engine, the printing 
press; on the other, appropriating to themselves, with diligent in- 
dustry and successful enterprise, the whole trade of the Levant. 

Their success in this important branch of commerce reacted upon 
the wealth and prosperity of their correspondents, their brethren in 
Italy. At a somewhat later period the famous Savonarola founded a 
Monte della Pieta in Florence, with the avowed purpose of rescuing 
the poor from the exactions of the Israelites, who were said to obtain 
thirty-two and a half per cent, on their loans with compound interest. 
As early as 1400 the jealous republic of Venice had per- 
mitted a bank to be opened in their city by two Jews. In 
almost every town of Italy they pursued their steady course of traffic. 
Their chief trade was money-lending ; in which, at least with the lower 
i classes, they seem to have held a successful contest against their old 
rivals, the Lombard bankers. An amiable enthusiast, Bernardino di 
Feltre, moved to see the whole people groaning under their extortions, 
endeavored to preach a crusade, not against their religion, but against 
their usury. His language towards the Jews was full of wisdom and 
humanity ; but, unhappily, the effect was, in many places, to raise the 
populace against them. In Piacenza the infuriated rabble wreaked 
their rapacity or vengeance; gibbets were loaded with Jews; some 



1048 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

were torn in pieces, their bodies cast to the dogs or wild animals. 
Bernardino di Feltre sought a better means of rescuing the poor from 
the hands of the Israelites. He established in various places banks 
on a more moderate rate of interest for the accommodation of the poor, 
called Mounts of Piety. He met with great success in many towns. 
In Padua he compelled the Jews to close their banks, from which they 
had drawn an enormous profit. But the people were either so deeply 
implicated with their usurious masters, so much the slaves of habit, or 
so much repressed by the honest shame of poverty, as to prefer secret, 
though more disadvantageous dealings with the Jews, to the publicity 
required in these new banks. The scheme languished, and in many 
places speedily expired. 

The conduct of the popes varied, as of old, as bigotry, policy, or 
humanity predominated in the character of the pontiff. In 1442 
Eugenius IV. issued severe regulations concerning the Jews, even 
going so far as to forbid them to eat or drink with Christians. Some 
of the popes, wiser than the most Catholic kings, began to discover 
that by casting forth the Jews, Christendom cast forth Jewish wealth 
from her kingdoms. They began to perceive and to be jealous of the 
Turks, whose stately indifference had permitted the Jews to settle and 
to trade in their dominions, and had thus secured a much larger share 
of the money market of Europe. They were unwilling to lose such 
profitable subjects. Leo X. rebuked the popular preachers who in- 
veighed against the tables of the Jewish money-changers. Paul III. 
openly espoused the cause of the Jews expelled from Portugal, and 
the New Christians, against whom the Inquisition continued to work 
with all its stern and implacable vigilance. The pope forbade in his 
own dominions all such cruel investigations. He granted an amnesty 
for all former offences. His aim was to encourage the prosperity of 
his rising port, Ancona. In this city the pope permitted Turks, Jews, 
heretics, to trade with perfect freedom without any inquiry into their 
creed. Ancona grew rapidly in opulence and in commerce. Julius 
III. not only confirmed the wise edict of his predecessor, but, on the 
establishment of the Inquisition at Rome on account of the perilous 
progress of the reformed opinions, he specially exempted the Jews of 
Ancona from this jurisdiction. Their peace was seriously endangered 
during the reign of this pontiff by a Franciscan friar who had apos- 
tatized to Judaism. He began to preach in the streets of Rome against 
Christianity. The pope attributed his course to his study of the Tal- 
mud, and, mercifully sparing the Jews themselves, contented himself 
with burning their books in the principal cities of Italy. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1049 

But the reawakening zeal of the popes, startled from its serene and 
mild slumbers by Protestantism, soon returned to its ancient bigotry 
and ignorance. Paul IV. renewed the hostile edicts ; he prohibited 
the Jews from holding real property ; compelled them to sell within 
six months (at a ruinous rate) all they then held ; and deprived them 
of the privilege of dealing in anything but old clothes. He shut them 
up in their Ghetto, a confined quarter of the city, out of which they 
were not to appear after sundown, and laid sundry other grievous 
burdens upon them. Pius IV. relaxed these severities. He enlarged 
the Ghetto, and permitted them to hold real property up to the value 
of 1500 ducats. Pius V. expelled them from every city in the papal 
territory, except Rome and Ancona, where, he avowed, he endured 
them only to preserve their commerce with the East. Gregory XIII. 
forbade the reading of the Talmud, and endeavored to force them into 
Christianity. Sixtus V. annulled the persecuting edicts of his prede- 
cessors, opened the gates of every city in his dominions to these enter- 
prising traders, secured and enlarged their privileges, proclaimed tole- 
ration of their religion, subjected them to the ordinary tribunals, and 
enforced a general and equal taxation. 

The great events of this period — the invention and rapid progress 
of printing and the Reformation — could not but have some effect on 
the condition of the Jews. This people were by no means slow to 
avail themselves of the advantages offered to learning by the general 
use of printing. From their presses at Venice, in Turkey, and in 
other quarters, splendid specimens of typography were sent forth, and 
the respect of the learned world was insensibly increased by the facili- 
ties thus afforded for the knowledge of the Scriptures in the original 
language, and the bold opening of all the mysteries of Rabbinical wis- 
dom to those who had sufficient inquisitiveness and industry to enter 
on that Avide and unknown field of study. A strong effort was made 
by struggling bigotry to suppress all these works which a pusillani- 
mous faith knew to be hostile, and therefore considered dangerous to 
the Christian religion. 

The Reformation found the Jews spread in great numbers in Ger- 
many and Poland. They were still, at least in theory, under imperial 
protection, if not as serfs, as a kind of vassals. The power of the em- 
peror had greatly decreased, however, and, when he did not seek to 
plunder them, he was not always able to protect them ; the free cities 
and the petty sovereigns alternately protected and plundered them. 
During the century preceding the Reformation their history is marked 
by persecutions in almost every city and province of Germany. These 



1050 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

records are sometimes told with frightful but significant brevity. "We 
read of their frequeut ejection, and worse than ejection, by the Land- 
grave of Thuringia; popular commotions in Nuremberg, Frankfort, 
Worms, almost everywhere; massacres in Gotha and Erfurt; their 
expulsion from the Mark of Brandenburg. Excluded from one city 
or state, they found refuge in another till the storm blew over. It is 
clear, however, that wherever they had an opportunity, though usually 
more addicted to money-lending, and the sale of gold trinkets and 
jewelry, they opened larger branches of traffic. In Poland they seem 
early to have entered into the great corn trade of that kingdom. Their 
most prosperous community, in spite of the terrible disasters which it 
suffered, was in Prague. In the Hussite wars, and later, in the days 
of Luther, the Jews of Prague were suspected by the Reformers of 
fidelity to the Catholic emperors ; they were strangely accused of aid- 
ing the Turks, the common enemies of the emperor and the Reformers, 
During the Reformation period, about A. D. 1542, terrible conflagra- 
tions broke out in many cities of Germany which were laid to the 
account of the Jews, who suffered greatly from the ignorant fury of 
the people. 

The Reformation brought peace to the Jews in many parts of Eu- 
rope, partly by diverting the attention of the Church of Rome to other 
and more dangerous enemies, and partly by the wise maxims of tole- 
ration, which, though not the immediate, were not less the legitimate, 
fruits of this great revolution in the European world. The bitterness 
of religious hatred was gradually assuaged; active animosity settled 
down into quiet aversion ; the popular feeling became contempt of the 
sordid meanness of the Jewish character, justified no doubt by the 
filthy habits, the base frauds, and the miserable chicanery of many of 
the lower orders who alone came in contact with the mass of the 
people, rather than revengeful antipathy towards the descendants of 
those who crucified the Redeemer, and who, by their obstinate unbe- 
lief, inherited the guilt of their forefathers. 

During the Thirty Years' War the Jews, it has been said, assisted 
with great valor in the defence of Prague, and obtained the favor and 
protection of the grateful emperor. Before this the Reformation had 
been the remote cause of another important benefit — the opening of 
the free cities of Holland — where a great number of Portuguese Jewa 
settled, and vied in regularity, enterprise, and wealth, with the com- 
mercial citizens of that flourishing republic. The Jews of Amsterdam 
and other cities bore a high rank for intelligence and punctuality in 
business. 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1051 

From Holland they long looked for some favorable opportunity 
which might open the exchange, the marts, and the havens of Eng- 
land to their adventurous traffic. But the stern law of Edward I. 
was still in force, and though often eluded, the religious feeling of 
the country, as well as the interests of the trading part of the commu- 
nity, would have risen in arms at a proposition for its repeal. Yet it 
can hardly be doubted that Jews must have walked the streets of 
London, and though proscribed by the law, must, by tacit, perhaps 
unconscious, connivance, have taken some share in the expanding 
commerce of England during the reign of the Tudors. It was not, 
however, until the Protectorate of Cromwell that the Jews made an 
open attempt to obtain a legal reestablishment in the realm. The 
strength of ancient prejudice, cooperating with the aversion of a 
large part of the nation towards the government, gave rise to the 
most absurd rumors of their secret proposals to the Protector. It was 
said that they had offered to buy St. Paul's for their synagogue for 
half a million of pounds ; and that they had sent to inquire if Crom- 
well was not the Messiah. The truth is, that a Jewish physician of 
great learning and influence, presented a petition to the Protector for 
the read mission of his countrymen into the realm, enforcing his re- 
quest by appeals to the interest and the vanity of Cromwell. The 
Protector summoned an assembly of two lawyers, seven citizens of 
London, and fourteen divines, to debate the question, first, whether it 
was lawful to admit the Jews ; secondly, if lawful, on what terms it 
was expedient to admit them. The lawyers decided at once on the 
legality; the citizens were divided ; but the contest among the divines 
was so long and so inconclusive, that Oliver at length grew weary, 
and the question was adjourned to a more favorable opportunity. It 
is a curious fact of the times, that so far were some of the Republican 
writers from hostility to the Jews, that Harrington, in his " Oceana," 
gravely proposes disburdening the kingdom of the weight of Irish 
affairs, by selling the island to the Jews. The necessities of Charles 
II. and his courtiers quietly accomplished that change on which 
Cromwell had not dared openly to venture. The convenient Jews 
stole insensibly into the kingdom, where they have ever since main- 
tained their footing, and no doubt contributed their fair share to the 
national wealth. 

During all this while the Jewish nation was thrown into constant 
excitement by adventurers who, from time to time, assumed the namo 
of the Messiah. It is probable that the constant appearance of these 
successive impostors tended to keep alive the ardent belief of the 



1052 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

nation in this great and consolatory article of their creed. The dis- 
appointment in each particular case might break the spirit and confound 
the faith of the immediate followers of the pretender, but it kept the 
whole nation incessantly on the watch. The Messiah was ever pre- 
sent to the thoughts and visions of the Jews : their prosperity seemed 
the harbinger of his coming ; their darkest calamities gathered around 
them only to display, with the force of stronger contrast, the mercy 
of their God and the glory of their Redeemer. In vain the Rabbini- 
cal interdict repressed the dangerous curiosity which, still baffled, 
would still penetrate the secrets of futurity. " Cursed is he who 
calculates the time of the Messiah's coming," was constantly repeated 
in the synagogue, and as constantly disregarded. That chord in the 
national feeling was never struck but it seemed to vibrate through 
the whole community. A long list of Messiahs might be produced 
in France, in Fez, in Persia, in Moravia ; but our limits forbid. One 
of these, in A. D. 1666, even went so far (after throwing the Jews 
throughout the Eastern world into a fever-hope and exultation) as to 
confront the Sultan at Constantinople and demand his submission ; 
but the stern monarch's eye overwhelmed the impostor with confu- 
sion, and he escaped death only by becoming a Mussulman. 

It was during this period also that the Jewish race produced that 
remarkable man — Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) — the influence of 
whose writings for good or for evil has been extensive, beyond that 
of most men, on the thoughts and opinions of modern Europe. 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Poland, Galicia, and 
the adjacent provinces had long been the headquarters of the Jews. 
Into these regions they had spread at an early period, silently and 
obscurely, from Hungary, Moravia, Bohemia. Some had taken 
refuge from the atrocities perpetrated by the early Crusaders as they 
passed through these realms ; some from the persecutions of the 
Flagellants, and those which rose out of the Black Plague. It is 
usual to date their flourishing state and protection by the paternal 
government from the reign of Casimir the Great, in the fourteenth 
century. Casimir, however, only confirmed a law of Duke Boleslaw, 
the regent of the realm during the minority of his nephew. This 
was the first enlightened edict which secured to the Jews with unusual 
precision their privileges, their rights, and their duties, as subjects. 
Boleslaw, and still more, Casimir avowed the policy that by encour- 
aging the Jews, they encouraged the commerce of the kingdom. 
They had the premature wisdom to appreciate the value of trade and 
industry to the wealth and happiness of their country. Many cir- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1053 

cumstances concurred in advancing the comparative security, and with 
the security, the numbers, wealth, and influence of the Jews in this 
part of Europe. In the Slavonian kingdoms, the feudal system 
never prevailed to the same extent as in Germany and the West. 
Though under the royal protection, the Jews were not the liegemen, 
the vassals of the royal chamber, the property of the king. The Sla- 
vonian clergy never, even when the Papal power was recognized, 
attained the same authority ; the nobility were in constant strife with 
the hierarchy ; the Canon-law had far less power. In vain did the 
clergy make, as under the reign of Sigismund I., a desperate struggle 
to draw the rigid line of demarcation between the Jew and the Chris- 
tian, to prohibit social and commercial intercourse, to demand their 
exclusion from the offices of State and public service, even to en- 
force the peculiar and distinctive dress upon the Jew. The Jews living 
on the estates, and under the protection of the independent nobles who 
would brook no interference with their authority, defied the edicts of 
synods and even of kings. Not that the kings were adverse to them ; 
the greatest and best, as John Sobieski, looked on them with favor, 
and maintained them in their rights and in 'their industry. Nor 
indeed were the Slavonian Jews always secure against the calumnies, 
against the popular tumults, the plunders, and the massacres perpetrated 
so much more frequently, so much more cruelly, in Western Europe. 
Posen and Cracow, the chief seats of the most powerful Roman 
Catholic hierarchy, may claim distinctive infamy for these persecu- 
tions. The building of a synagogue in Posen was the signal for a 
rumor about an insult to the Host, an outbreak of the populace, and 
pillage and murder of the Jews. In Cracow, in 1407, a priest care- 
fully spread the report of a murdered child. The authorities of the 
city would have protected the Jews ; but the great bell tolled (it is 
said, through some mistake), the mob rose, the Jews' houses were 
fired, and a terrible conflagration wasted the city. In 1464, the Jews 
were plundered in Cracow, and thirty men killed. In 1500, the 
gates of the Jewish quarter, notwithstanding the king's protection, 
who had removed the Jews to a safer place, were forced, and a great 
slaughter perpetrated. Even as late as 1737, in Posen, as in 1753, 
in Kiew, the child-murder fable rose anew against the Jews. Won- 
derful as it may seem, such things have taken place in our own times, 
in the nineteenth century. It needed Russian Imperial Ukases to 
interpose. In the province of Witepek, in 1805, a child was found 
drowned in the Dwina ; the Jews were accused of the murder. In 
1811, a child eight weeks old disappeared out of its cradle; the Jews 



1054 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

were arraigned as having stolen it for their evil purposes. The pro- 
cess lasted till 1827. An Imperial Ukase appeared in 1817, prohibit- 
ing such charges, yet they continued to be made and heard till 1835, 
the date of the great Imperial edict concerning the Jews. Neverthe- 
less, the Jews in Poland gradually grew up into a middle order 
between the nobles and the serfs. Almost every branch of traffic was 
in their hands. They were the corn merchants, shopkeepers, inn- 
keepers. In some towns they formed the greatest part of the popu- 
lation ; in some villages, almost the whole. If heavily, it does not 
appear that they were exorbitantly taxed, either by the nobles or the 
government. They suffered heavily during the wars with which Po- 
land was afflicted, but in common with the rest of the inhabitants. 

If Poland was hospitable, Russia Proper, from ancient times, was 
sternly inhospitable to the race of Israel. They were hated by the 
Russians, and were not allowed to dwell in the land in peace. This 
hatred was deepened towards the close of the fifteenth century (in 
1490) by the discovery of the apostasy of a large number of the 
clergy and high officers of the State, including the Metropolitan of 
All the Russias, to Judaism. They endeavored to conceal their 
apostasy by continuing the outward practices of the Christian faith, 
but were at length discovered. The Czar removed the Metropolitan, 
and others were mildly punished. This Crypto-Judaism lurked long 
in the bosom of the Russian Church ; when it was entirely extin- 
guished, if extinguished, remains unknown. 

Russia, in the following centuries, still adhered to her hostility to 
the Jews ; but her ambition was too strong for her intolerance. As 
province after province was added to her vast empire, and as of almost 
all these provinces a large part of the population, at least the wealthi- 
est and most industrious, were Jews, expulsion was impossible; Rus- 
sia did not conquer to rule over a desert. Her policy became of 
necessity more wise and humane. The partition of Poland, or rather 
the two partitions, with the enormous share which fell into her iron 
grasp, gave her nearly half a million of Jewish subjects. Though, 
like other Poles, they were unwilling subjects (many Jews fought 
bravely in the army of Kosciusko), yet their numbers, their wealth, 
their importance, enforced only moderate oppression. 

Of the millions of Jews upon the face of the earth, loosely and 
vaguely estimated at five, seven, or eight millions, two millions are 
subjects of the Russian Empire. 

Poland was the seat of the Rabbinical Papacy. The Talmud 
reigned supreme in the public mind ; the synagogues obeyed with 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1059 

implicit deference the mandates of their spiritual superiors, and the 
whole system of education was rigidly conducted, so as to perpetuate 
the authority of tradition. Lublin and Cracow were the great seats 
of Jewish learning. 

In the West of Europe events were hastening to that crisis which 
marked the close of the eighteenth century, and which was to exercise 
such a great effect upon the political condition of the Jew. 

The legislation of Frederick the Great almost, as it were, throws 
us back to the Middle Ages. In 1750 appeared an edict for the 
general regulation of the Jews in the Prussian dominions. It limited 
the number of Jews in the kingdom, divided them into those who 
held an ordinary or an extraordinary protection from the Crown. 
The ordinary protection descended to one child, the extraordinary 
was limited to the life of the bearer. Foreign Jews were prohibited 
from settling in Prussia ; exceptions were obtained only at an exorbi- 
tant price. Widows who married foreign Jews must leave the king- 
dom. The protected Jews were liable to enormous and special 
burdens. They paid, besides the common taxes of the kingdom, for 
their patent of protection, for every election of an elder in their com- 
munities, and every marriage. By a strange enactment, in which the 
king and the merchant were somewhat unroyally combined, every 
Jew on the marriage of a son was obliged to purchase porcelain, to 
the amount of 300 rix-dollars, from the king's manufactory, for 
foreign exportation. Thus heavily burdened, the Jews were excluded 
from all civil functions, and from many of the most profitable branches 
of trade — from agriculture, from breweries and distilleries, from manu- 
factures, from innkeeping, from victualling, from physic and surgery. 

In England, soon after their settlement in the kingdom under 
Charles II., a strong effort was made to force them out of the country. 
The king was urged to seize their property for the people's use, and 
drive them out of the land. Some of their wealthiest were threatened 
with the seizure of their whole property, as illegally trading, even as 
residents in the land, by some of the profligate courtiers. The Earl 
of Berkshire betrayed the secret of the zeal which moved these noble 
gentlemen ; he pretended to have received a verbal order from the 
king to prosecute them and seize their estates, unless they made agree- 
ment with him. To do Charles II. justice, he received the appeal of 
the Jews graciously, utterly denied the verbal order, and gave them 
permission to enjoy the same favor as before, so long as they should 
live peaceably and in obedience to the laws. 

The Jews obtained relief under James II. from an alien duty, 



1056 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

which restricted their traffic; the indulgence was revoked under 
William III. They offered the Lord Treasurer £500,000 for the 
town of Brentford as a place of residence and trade, but Godolphin 
dreaded the fanaticism of the clergy and the jealousy of the merchants, 
and declined the offer. 

Under Queen Anne a regulation was made to facilitate conversions 
among the Jews ; the Chancellor was empowered to enforce from the 
father of a convert to Christianity a fair and sufficient maintenance. 
In 1753, a Bill passed both Houses of Parliament, and received the 
royal assent, to naturalize all Jews who had resided three years in the 
kingdom, without being absent more than three months at a time. It 
excluded them from civil offices, but in other respects bestowed all 
the privileges of British subjects. The measure raised such a furious 
storm of popular indignation that Parliament found it necessary to 
repeal the obnoxious statute. The number of Jews in England was 
then reckoned at 12,000. 

In Italy, till the French Revolution, the Jews enjoyed their quiet 
freedom. In Rome they were confined to their Ghetto, and still con- 
strained to listen to periodical sermons. In the maritime towns they 
continued to prosper. In the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, after the 
separation from the Spanish monarchy, the king, Charles, seemed 
determined to repudiate the Spanish policy. He invited the Jews to 
settle in the Two Sicilies, and granted them extensive and extraordi- 
nary privileges, his design being doubtless to restore the commerce of 
the kingdom. The Jews crowded at the royal summons to Naples, 
— perhaps not without ostentation of their newly acquired privileges, 
and of their wealth. But they ought to have known better the public 
mind at Naples. The hatred, which was here universal, broke out 
into fury. The clergy denounced them bitterly, threatening even the 
king with heaven's vengeance for his "impious act." There were 
brooding murmurs of a massacre. The Jews dared not open shops ; 
they withdrew, except a few of the lowest. The premature scheme 
of toleration utterly failed. 

In the year 1780, the imperial avant-courier of the revolution, 
Joseph the Second, ascended the throne of Germany. Among the 
first measures of this restless and universal reformer, was a measure 
for the amelioration of the Jews. Leopold I. had expelled them from 
Vienna, for their supposed complicity in the murder of his mistress 
(Esther), who was a Jewess. Maria Theresa had permitted them to 
return under certain stringent regulations, and since then they had 
been barely tolerated in the capital. In 1782, Joseph II. placed 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 105? 

them on a level with the Christians as regarded their rights and the 
duties required of them, and threw open to them the schools and the 
universities of the empire. Some years after, they were made liable 
to military conscription ; but, according to the established Austrian 
code, not being nobles, they could not rise above the rank of non- 
commissioned officers. 

Frederick William II. repealed to a great extent the barbarous 
edicts of Frederick the Great. 

After the final expulsion of the Jews from Portugal, a few fugitives 
were permitted to take up their residence in Bordeaux and Bayonne, 
in France, under the name of New Christians. By degrees they crept 
into other parts of the kingdom, and finally the State came to recog- 
nize their existence as Jews. There were a certain number in the 
old Papal dominions in Avignon. The conquest of the city of Metz, 
and afterward of Alsace, included some considerable communities 
under the dominion of France. The clergy persecuted them in most 
places, and sometimes even stole their children in order to baptize 
them. Many of them, however, attained to great wealth, and in- 
dulged in great luxury. On the annexation of Alsace, Louis XIV. 
extended, for his own advantage, the privileges of free commerce, 
which had been granted to those of Bordeaux, Bayonne, Marseilles, to 
the Jews of Metz. They paid a head tax of forty francs a family, 
afterwards compounded for by 2000 francs annually. Under Louis 
XVI. the capitation tax was abolished (1784); and in 1788 a commis- 
sion was appointed, with the wise and good Malesherbes at its head, 
to devise means for remodelling on principles of justice all laws 
relating to the Jews. But the revolution burst upon France before 
the measures could be drafted, and the tribunals of the republic were 
more rapid in their movements than the slow justice of the sovereign. 
In 1790, the Jews, who had watched their opportunity, sent in peti- 
tions from various quarters, claiming equal rights as citizens. The 
measure was not passed without considerable discussion ; but Mira- 
beau and Rabaut St. Etienne declared themselves their advocates, 
and the Jews were recognized as free citizens of the great republic. 

Napoleon I. confirmed their privileges. In 1806 the world heard 
with amazement that the great conqueror had summoned a grand San- 
hedrin of the Jews to assemble at Paris. Upon the assembling of that 
body he submitted to them twelve questions, to which he asked ex- 
plicit answers. The questions and answers were briefly as follows : I. 
Is polygamy allowed among the Jews? A. Polygamy is forbidden, 
according to a decree of the Synod of Worms, in 1030. II. Is divorce 
67 



1058 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

recognized by the Jewish law ? A. Divorce is allowed; but in this 
respect the Jews recognize the authority of the civil law of the land in 
which they live. III. Can Jews intermarry with Christians? A. 
Intermarriages with Christians are not forbidden, though difficulties 
arise from the different forms of marriage. IV. "Will the French 
people be esteemed by the Jews as strangers or as brethren ? A. The 
Jews of France recognize in the fullest sense the French people as 
their brethren. V. In what relation, according to the Jewish law, 
would the Jews stand towards the French ? A. The relation of the 
Jew to the Frenchman is the same as of Jew to Jew. The only dis- 
tinction is their religion. VI. Do Jews born in France consider it 
their native country ? Are they bound to obey the laws and customs 
of the land? A. The Jews acknowledged France as their country 
when oppressed ; how much more must they when admitted to civil 
rights. VII. Who elect the Rabbins? A. The election of the Rab- 
bins is neither defined nor uniform. It usually rests with the heads 
of each family in the community. VIII. What are the legal powers 
of the Rabbins? A. The Rabbins have no judicial power; the San- 
hedrin is the only legal tribunal, the Jews of France and Italy 
being subject to the equal laws of the land. Whatever power they 
might otherwise exercise is annulled. IX. Are the election and au- 
thority of the Rabbins grounded on law or custom ? A. The election 
and powers of the Rabbins rest solely on usage. X. Is there any 
kind of business in which the Jews mav not be engaged ? A. All 
business is permitted to the Jews. The Talmud enjoins that every 
Jew be taught some trade. XI. Is usury to their brethren forbidden 
by the law ? XII. Is it permitted or forbidden to practise usury with 
strangers? A. The Mosaic institute forbids unlawful interest; but 
this was the law of an agricultural people. The Talmud allows legal 
interest to be taken from brethren and strangers ; it forbids usury. 

Previous to the meeting of this body there was a preparatory as- 
semblage of Jewish deputies selected from the different provinces in 
proportion to the Jewish population in each. In 1807 the Sanhedrin 
was formally assembled, according to a plan then proposed for the 
regular organization of the Jews throughout the empire. Every 2000 
Jews were ordered to form a synagogue and a consistory of one head 
and two inferior Rabbins, with three householders of the town where 
the consistory was held. The consistory chose twenty-five Notables, 
above thirtv years old, for their council. Bankrupts and usurers were 
excluded ; the consistory was to watch over the conduct of the Rab- 
bins; the central consistory of Paris was to be a supreme tribunal, 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1059 

■with the power of appointing or deposing the Rabbins ; the Rabbins 
were to publish the decrees of the Sanhedrin, to preach obedience to 
the laws, to urge the people to enter into the military service ; to pray 
in the synagogues for the imperial house. The Sanhedrin, assembled 
in this manner, generally ratified the scheme of the deputies. The 
imperial edict confirmed the whole system of organization, though the 
triumph of the Jews was in some degree damped by an ordinance, 
aimed chiefly at those of the Rhenish provinces. It interdicted the 
Jews from lending money to minors without the consent of their guar- 
dians, to wives without the consent of their husbands, to soldiers with- 
out the consent of their officers. It annulled all bills for which " value 
received " could not be proved. All Jews engaged in commerce were 
obliged to take out a patent ; all strangers to invest some property in 
land and agriculture. The general effect of these measures was shown 
in a return made in 1808. It reported that there were 80,000 Jews 
in the dominion of France; 1232 landed proprietors, not reckoning the 
owners of houses ; 797 military ; 2360 artisans ; 250 manufacturers. 

The extension of the French kingdoms and the erection of tribu- 
tary kingdoms were highly beneficial to the Jews. In Italy, in Holland, 
in the kingdom of Westphalia, the old barbarous restrictions fell away, 
and the Jew became a citizen, with all the rights and duties of the order. 

The laws of France relating to the Jews have remained unaltered, 
excepting that the law of the Restoration, which enacted that the 
teachers of Christianity alone should be salaried by the State, was 
modified at the accession of Louis Philippe. Since that period the 
Rabbins have received a stipend from the State. 

In Germany, the condition of the Jews, both political and intellec- 
tual, has been rapidly improving. Before the fall of Napoleon, 
besides many of the smaller States, the Grand Duke of Baden in 
1809, the King of Prussia in 1812, the Duke of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin in 1812, the King of Bavaria in 1813, issued ordinances, 
admitting the Jews to civil rights, exempting them from particular 
imposts, and opening to them all trades and professions. The act for 
the federative Constitution of Germany, passed at the Congress of 
Vienna in 1815, pledges the Diet to turn its attention to the amelio- 
ration of the civil state of the Jews throughout the Empire. The 
King of Prussia had, before this, given security that he would nobly 
redeem his pledge ; he had long paid great attention to the encourage- 
ment of education among the Jews. Many Jews are stated to have 
fallen in the Prussian ranks at Waterloo. During the year 1828 
while the States of Wiirtemberg were discussing a bill for the extcn- 



1060 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

sion of civil rights to the Jews, the populace of Stuttgard surrounded 
the Hall of Assembly with fierce outcries, " Down with the Jews ! 
Down with the friends of the Jews ! " The States maintained their dig- 
nity, and, unmoved, proceeded to the ratification of the obnoxious edict. 
Russia, it is said, contains two millions of Jews. In the earlier 
period of the empire, dating that empire from Peter the Great, before 
her wider southern conquests and the Polish annexations, she still 
maintained her stern inhospitality. In Muscovy Proper, by law, no 
Jew could reside within the frontiers. Under Peter the Great, a few 
stole in unobserved and unmolested. They were expelled by an Ukase 
of the Empress Elizabeth, A. d. 1795, for a crime unpardonable by a 
Russian autocrat. They had, by letters of change, secured the pro- 
perty of certain exiles to Siberia and foreign countries; and invested, 
out of Russia, the savings of foreigners employed in the Russian 
service. In later years, the policy of the Russian government seems 
to have been to endeavor to overthrow the Rabbinical authority, and 
to relieve the crowded Polish provinces by transferring the Jews to 
less densely peopled parts of their dominions, where it was hoped 
they might be induced or compelled to become an agricultural race. 
An Ukase of the Emperor Alexander, in 1803-4, prohibited the 
practice of small trades to the Jews of Poland, and proposed to trans- 
port numbers of them to agricultural settlements. He transferred, 
likewise, the management of the revenue of the communities from the 
Rabbins, who were accused of malversation, to the elders. A decree 
of the Emperor Nicholas appears to be aimed partly at the Rabbins, 
who are to be immediately excluded by the police from any town 
they may enter, and at the petty traffickers, who are entirely pro- 
hibited in the Russian dominions ; though the higher order of mer- 
chants, such as bill-brokers and contractors, are admitted, on receiving 
an express permisson from the government; artizans and handicrafts- 
men are encouraged, though they are subject to rigorous police regu- 
lations, and must be attached to some guild or fraternity. They 
cannot move without a passport. The important Ukase of 1835 is 
the charter, we must not say of their liberties, but limits the oppres- 
sions to wdiich the Jews were formerly liable, and gives them a de- 
fined state and position in the Russian Empire. Still greater privi- 
leges were accorded to them in 1862, by the Emperor Alexander II. 
In England, during the present century, they have enjoyed the 
largest privileges. In 1835, one of their leading men, Mr. David 
Salomons, was elected Sheriff of London. He was the first Jew that 
had ever held this high office, and an Act was passed by Parliament en- 



SECULAR HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 1061 

abling him to serve. In 1836, an effort was made to secure a general 
emancipation of the English Jews from their political disabilities, but 
the bill failed in the House of Commons. Moses Montefiore, Esq., 
was elected Sheriff of London in 1837, and on the 9th of November 
of that year, was knighted by the Queen, being the first of his race 
on whom this honor was ever conferred. In 1855, Alderman Salo- 
mons was elected Lord Mayor of London, the first Jew ever chosen 
to that office, and in 1865, Alderman Benjamin Samuel Phillips 
became the second Jewish Lord Mayor. In 1849, Baron Lionel de 
Rothschild was elected to Parliament for the city of London, and in 
1857, Alderman Salomons was returned for Greenwich. Baron de 
Rothschild was again returned for the capital in 1852, and at the 
two general elections in 1857. Neither of these gentlemen was able 
to take his seat, the oath required of a member of Parliament being 
such that only a Christian could subscribe to it. Repeated efforts 
were made to modify the official oaths of the kingdom, and, in 1846, 
a law was passed providing a special form of oath for Jews holding 
civil offices. In July, 1858, Parliament passed an Act, which received 
the royal assent, enabling Jews to sit in that body, and on the 26th 
of that month Baron de Rothschild took his seat as the representative 
of the city of London. In 1860, Parliament adopted an Act permit- 
ting Jewish members to omit the words "on the faith of a Christian" 
from the usual oath. This is at present the condition of the Jews in 
Great Britian, where they form a large and flourishing community, 
and are acknowledged to be amongst the best and most devoted citi- 
zens of the realm. 

The Roman Catholic Church, however, has not ceased to persecute 
the Jews. In June, 1858, a youth named Edgar Mortara was forci- 
bly taken from his parents by the Archbishop of Bologna, on the 
plea of having been baptized when an infant by a Roman Catholic 
maid-servant. His parents implored his release, but in vain. The 
Jews in England and France brought great influence to bear upon 
the Papal Court, and even the French government urged the restora- 
tion of the lad, but all without effect. The Papal Court was deaf to 
the voice of humanity, and blinded by bigotry, and the lad's family 
were obliged to submit to their cruel bereavement. Again, in 1864, 
the Jews were subjected to a cruel and bigoted persecution in the city 
of Rome. 

The Jews emigrated to the United States at an early day, and have 
thriven in this country to a greater degree than elsewhere. They are 
to be found in every part of the Union, in almost every village. The 



1062 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

perfect equality of all men before the law, the civil and religious 
freedom guaranteed to all by our institutions, and the admirable 
opportunities here enjoyed for amassing wealth, attract them from all 
parts of the world. They are increasing rapidly in numbers and 
wealth. They are largely interested in the financial operations of the 
country; they own much real estate; they are engaged in every de- 
partment of industry, and their thrift and business capacity have 
added largely to the wealth and commerce of the land. Their relig- 
ious edifices are among the most imposing in the Union ; their chari- 
table, benevolent, and educational establishments among the noblest. 
In the city of Xew York alone their synagogues are valued at more 
than §3,000,000. The census of 1860, gives the number of Jews in 
the Union as 200,000. It is doubtless very much larger at present. 

It is usually calculated that there are about five or six millions of 
Jews in the world. From the best information at our command, we 
estimate their numbers as follows, in the various countries of the globe : 

In Morocco about 540,000 souls. 

In Egypt " 2,000 " 

In Bokhara " 2,000 families. 

In Persia " 2,974 " 

In Mesopotamia and Assyria " 5,270 " 

In Arabia " 18,000 souls. 

In Syria and Palestine " 16,059 " 

In the Turkish dominions, not including the Bar- 

bary States " 800,000 " 

In the Russian Empire " 2,000,000 " 

In the Austrian u " 1,049,871 " 

In Denmark " 6,000 " 

In Sweden " 450 " 

In Prussia " 134,000 " 



In the German States (not given above) " 108,000 



it 



In Belgium " 3,000 " 

In Holland " 70,000 " 

In France " 110,000 " 

In Spain " 4 500 " 

In Italy " 50,000 " 

In Great Britain " 36,000 " 

In the United States " 220,000 " 

Thus scattered over the face of the earth, divided by the language 
and the customs of the various countries they inhabit, they constitute 
one and the same race — a race which is patiently awaiting the time 
when it shall be the good pleasure of Jehovah to gather them to 
Himself from the ends of the earth, under the kingdom of the trium- 
phant Messiah — that Messiah whom they now despise, but whom 
they will then acknowledge as the true heir of his father David. 



APPENDIX. 



THE LEGISLATION OF MOSES. 




THE PRINCIPLES AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW. 

LARGE portion of the second and fourth books of the Pentateuch 
(Exodus and Numbers), and nearly the whole of its third and fifth 
books (Leviticus and Deuteronomy), are occupied with the Laws, 
which Moses was the instrument of giving to the Jewish people. 
He keeps ever before our eyes the fact that the Law was the Law 
of Jehovah. Its outline was given from Sinai by the voice of 
God himself. One whole section of it, containing the ordinances of divine 
worship, was communicated to Moses by a special revelation, in the secrecy 
of the mount. And even in the case of those precepts, which were enacted 
as the occasion for each arose, we find Moses invariably referring the ques- 
tion to the express decision of Jehovah. 

We proceed to give an abstract of the Law under its several heads, follow- 
ing as nearly as possible the order of the Pentateuch itself, which has more 
system than is commonly supposed. The basis of the whole law is laid in 
the Ten Commandments, as we call them, though they are nowhere so en- 
titled in the Mosaic books ; but the u Ten Words," the " Covenant," or, 
very often, as the solemn attestation of the divine will, the Testimony. 
The term "Commandments" had come into use in the time of Christ. 
Their division into two tables is not only expressly mentioned, but the stress 
laid upon the two, leaves no doubt that the distinction was important, and 
that it answered to that summary of the law, which was made both by 
Moses and by Christ into two precepts ; so that the First Table contained 
Dalies to God, and the Second, Duties to our Neighbor. 

But here arises a difficulty, not only as to the arrangement of the com- 
mandments between the u Two Tables," but as to the division of the " Ten 
Words " themselves. The division is not clearly made in the Scripture itself; 
and that arrangement, with which we are familiar from childhood, is only 
one of three modes, handed down from the ancient Jewish and Christian 
Churches, to say nothing of modern theories ; and others are used at this 
day by Jews and Roman Catholics. 

(1.) The modern Jews, following the Talmuds, take the words which are 
often called the Preface as the First Commandment ; and the prohibitions 
both against having other gods, and against idolatry, as the second ; the rest 
being arranged as with us. 

(2.) The Iloman Catholic and Lutheran Churches, following St. Augus- 

1063 



1064 niSTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

tine, regard the First Commandment as embracing all the above words, 
in one comprehensive law against false worship and idolatry. Thus our 
Third Commandment is their Second, and so on to our Ninth, which is 
their Eighth. They then make our Tenth against coveting their Ninth and 
Tenth. In the arrangement of the Two Tables, the first contains three com- 
mandments, closing with the Sabbath law, and the second the remaining 
seven. 

(3.) The arrangement adopted by the Greek and English Churches, fol- 
lowing Philo, Josephus, and Origen, and all the Latin fathers, makes the 
law against having other gods besides Jehovah the First Commandment, and 
that against idolatry the Second, though a slight difference of opinion re- 
mains, whether the first words belong to the First Commandment, or form 
a Preface to the whole. 

There are then three principal divisions of the Two Tables : (i.) That of 
the Roman Catholic Church mentioned above, making the First Table con- 
tain three commandments, and the second the other seven. (ii.) The 
familiar division, referring the first four to our duty toward God, and the 
six remaining to our duty toward man. (iii.) The division recognized by 
the old Jewish writers, Josephus and Philo, and supported by Ewald, which 
places five commandments in each Table ; and thus preserves the pentade 
and decade grouping which pervades the whole code. It has been main- 
tained that the law of filial duty, being a close consequence of God's fatherly 
relation to us, may be referred to the First Table. But this is to place hu- 
man parents on a level with God, and, by parity of reasoning, the Sixth 
Commandment might be added to the First Table, as murder is the destruc- 
tion of God's image in man. Far more reasonable is the view which regards 
the authority of parents as heading the Second Table, as the earthly reflex 
of that authority of the Father of his people and of all men which heads 
the first, and as the first principle of the whole law of love to our neighbors, 
because we are all brethren ; and the family is, for good and ill, the model 
of the State. 

From the Two Tables, then, we deduce the great division into — i. Duties 
toward God,, or Laws concerning Religion and Worship, ii. Duties toward 
man, or Laws of Civil Right. 

They do not explicitly lay down the principles of the judicial and political 
law, which are to be deduced from the fundamental idea of Jehovah's 
sovereignty as laid down in the First Commandment. Nor do they speak 
of the sanctions of the law by rewards and punishments, except in the 
general statement of the principle of retribution appended to the Second 
Commandment, and the special promise annexed to the Fifth. The first 
of these two great branches of the law may be regarded as a deduction 
from the First Table ; the latter as the enforcement of both by necessary 
coercion. 

Hence we may classify the whole law as follows : 

Laws Religious and Ceremonial. 

Laws Constitutional and Political. 

Laws Civil : human duties and rights. 

Laws Criminal : the statement of which must be, to some extent, included 
under the former heads. 



APPENDIX. 1065 

LAWS RELIGIOUS AND CEREMONIAL. 

Laws Religious and Ceremonial, or those concerning God and his 
worship, and the relation of the people to him as their God. The First Com- 
mandment begins with the declaration, "I am Jehovah thy God, which 
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage." This 
clause, often called the Preface, determines all God's relations to the people, 
and theirs to him, involving as its consequences : 

(1.) The belief in Jehovah as God, the acceptance of his covenant, and the 
observance of his ordinances. 

(2.) The Holiness of the People, as Jehovah's peculiar possession, with their 
families, servants, lands, and flocks, and all that belonged to them. 

The remainder of the commandment forbids them to "have any other 
Gods before " Jehovah, that is, not in preference to— such a height of impiety 
is not alluded to — but in presence of Jehovah, or, as it is afterward expressed, 
with him. For false worship began, not with the positive rejection of the 
true God, but by associating with his worship that of other gods and their 
images ; nay, even images which professed to represent Jehovah himself. 
This was the sin of Aaron in the matter of the golden calf; we meet it again 
and again in the history of Israel, and it reached its climax in the idolatries 
of Solomon. Under this prohibition was included, not only the worship of 
false gods, but every pretence to supernatural power or commerce with su- 
pernatural beings, except with God himself in his own ordinances. Hence 
the severe laws against witchcraft and divination, of which we shall speak 
under the head of the Criminal Law. 

The Second Commandment, which is the necessary consequence of the first, 
prohibits both the making and the worshipping of any likeness of any object 
in the heaven, the earth, and the water ; and adds the reason, often after- 
ward repeated, that Jehovah is a God jealous of his own honor ; and the 
sanction of accumulated punishments on generation after generation of those 
that hate him, and mercies innumerable to "those that love him and keep 
his commandments." The peculiar form of the commandment is designed, 
not to forbid sculpture, which God enjoined in the case of the cherubim, but 
to guard against the sophistical distinction by which image-worship has 
ever since been defended, between bowing down before an image and bowing 
down to it, between worshipping God while adoring the image and worship- 
ping the image itself. 

The Third Commandment proceeds not only from outward acts to the 
reverence of the lips toward Jehovah and his holy Name, in the act of wor- 
ship ; but it implies the sanctity of oaths a7td voios, and it also embraces 
common speech. Thus it is interpreted by Christ and the Apostles, in the 
passages of the New Testament which refer to perjury and profane swearing. 
It implies also the guilt of falsehood, in its aspect toward God, whose own 
truth is blasphemed, when man uses the speech with which he has endowed 
him to deceive ; as the Ninth Commandment condemns falsehood between 
man and man. In all these points of view the emphatic warning of respon- 
sibility, annexed to the commandment, is a most needful guard against the 
commonest form of self-deception. 

The Fourth Commandment, proceeding to the regulation of the life in refer- 



1066 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

ence to God, is based on the principle for which God had made provision 
from the creation, that our nature needs seasons for "remembering" our 
God and Maker. Of this more when we speak of the law of the Sabbath. 
Under it may be grouped all the ordinances for the observance of times aud 
festivals. 

The special laws based upon these commandments of the first table, be- 
sides their penalties in the criminal law, ma}' be arranged as follows : 

I. God^s presence among tlie people: the Tabernacle and its Furniture, and 
its Ministers. 

II. The bond of the Covenant between Him and the People by Sacrifices and 
Offerings. 

III. The Holiness of the people, in person, act, and property. 

IV. The Sacred Seasons, appointed for special acts of service. 

THE TABEPwXACLE. 

Appealing to the senses of a people whose spiritual discernment was 
undeveloped, " Jehovah, who brought them out of Egypt,-' represented him- 
self as ever with them, to guide and guard them on their journeys, and to 
dwell with them when they rested, and when they should find a fixed abode. 
On the very night in which they began their march, the visible symbol of 
His presence went before them in the Shechixah, or pillar of fire by night 
and of cloud by day, the advance or halt of which was the signal for their 
march or rest. There is reason to suppose that there was also from the first 
some kind of sacred tent, over which would be the place of the Shechinah 
when at rest. Sacrifice was contemplated as the very object of their journey, 
and we read of its being offered by Jethro and Aaron before Sinai : but of its 
place we have no other notice than the command given in the first series of 
precepts, to make an elevated altar of earth or unhewn stone, which was to 
be approached with careful decency, in all pAaces where Jehovah would record 
His name, and come and bless them. 

It was soon intimated that He would fix one such place for His abode, 
where alone sacrifices might be offered. Meanwhile, the first ordinances 
given to Moses, after the proclamation of the outline of the law from Sinai, 
related to the ordering of the Tabernacle, its furniture and its service, as 
the type which was to be followed when the people came to their own home 
and "found a place" for the abode of God. During the forty days of 
Moses's first retirement with God in Sinai, an exact pattern of the whole 
was shown him, and all was made according to it. 

The description of this plan is preceded by an account of the free-will of- 
ferings which the children of Israel were to be asked to make for its execu- 
tion. The materials were : — 

(a) Metals : gold, silver, and brass. 

(6) Textile fabrics : blue, purple, scarlet, and fine (white) linen, for the pr<v 
duction of which Egypt was celebrated ; also a fabric of goats 1 hair, the 
produce of their own flocks. 

(c) Skins: of the ram, dyed red, and of the badger. 

(d) Wood : the sJiittim-wood, the timber of the wild acacia of the desert 
itself, the tree of the "burning bush/' 

(e) Oil, spices, and incense, for anointing the priests, and burning in the 
tabernacle. 



APPENDIX. 1067 

(/) Gems : onyx stones, and the precious stones for the breastplate of the 
high-priest. 

The people gave jewels, and plates of gold and silver, and brass ; wood, 
skins, hair, and linen ; the women wove ; the rulers offered precious stones, 
oil, spices, and incense ; and the artists soon had more than they needed. 
The superintendence of the work was intrusted to Bazaleel, of the tribe of 
Judah, and to Aholiab, of the tribe of Dan, who were skilled "in all manner 
of workmanship." 

The Tabernacle was the tent of Jehovah, called by the same name as 
the tents of the people, in the midst of which it stood. It was also called 
the sanctuary, and the tabernacle of the congregation. It was a portable 
building, designed to contain the sacred ark, the special symbol of God's 
presence, and was surrounded by an outer court. 

(i.) The Court of the Tabernacle, in which the Tabernacle itself stood, was 
an oblong space, 100 cubits by 50 (i. e., 150 feet by 75), having its longer 
axis east and west, with its front to the east. It was surrounded by canvas 
screens— in the East called Kannauts — 5 cubits in height, and supported by 
pillars of brass 5 cubits apart, to which the curtains were attached by hooks 
and fillets of silver. This enclosure was only broken on the eastern side by 
the entrance, which was 20 cubits wide, and closed by curtains of fine twined 
linen, wrought with needle-work, and of the most gorgeous colors. 

In the outer or eastern half of the court was placed the altar of burnt- 
offering, and between it and the Tabernacle itself, the laver at which the 
priests washed their hands and feet on entering the Temple. 

(ii.) The Tabernacle itself was placed toward the western end of this enclo- 
sure. It was an oblong rectangular structure, 30 cubits in length by 10 in 
width (45 feet by 15), and 10 in height ; the interior being divided into two 
chambers, the first or outer of 20 cubits in length, the inner of 10 cubits, and 
consequently an exact cube. The former was the Holy Place, or First Tabrr- 
nacle, containing the golden candlestick on one side, the table of shew-bread 
opposite, and between them in the centre the altar of incense. The latter 
was the Most Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies, containing the ark, sur- 
mounted by the cherubim, with the two tables inside. 

The two sides, and the further or western end, were enclosed by boards 
of shittim-wood overlaid with gold, twenty on the north and south side, six 
on the western side, and the corner-boards doubled. They stood upright, 
edge to edge, their lower ends being made with tenons, which dropped into 
sockets of silver, and the corner-boards being coupled at the top with rings. 
They were furnished with golden rings, through which passed bars of shit- 
tim wood, overlaid with gold, five to each side, and the middle bar passing 
from end to end, so as to brace the whole together. Four successive cov- 
erings of curtains looped together were placed over the open top, and fell 
down over the sides. The first, or inmost, was a splendid fabric of linen, 
embroidered with figures of cherubim, in blue, purple, and scarlet, and 
looped together by golden fastenings. It seems probable that the ends of 
this set of curtains hung down within the Tabernacle, forming a sumptuous 
tapestry. The next was a woollen covering of goats' hair ; the third, of 
rams' skins dyed red ; and the outermost, of badgers' skins. It has been 
usually supposed that these coverings were thrown over the walls, like a pall 



1068 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

is thrown over a coffin ; but this would have allowed every drop of rain that 
fell on the Tabernacle to fall through ; for, however tightly the curtains 
might be stretched, the water could never run over the edge, and the sheep- 
skins would only make the matter worse, as, when wetted, the weight would 
depress the centre, and probably tear any curtain that could be made. 
There can be no reasonable doubt that the tent had a ridge, as all tents have 
had from the days of Moses down to the present day. 

The front of the Sanctuary was closed by a hanging of fine linen, em- 
broidered in blue, purple, and scarlet, and supported by golden hooks, on 
five pillars of shittim-wood overlaid with gold, and standing in brass sock- 
ets ; and the covering of goat's hair was so made as to fall down over this 
when required. A more sumptuous curtain of the same kind, embroidered 
with cherubim, hung on four such pillars, with silver sockets, divided the 
Holy from the Most Holy Place. It was called the Veil, as it hid from 
the eyes of all but the high-priest the inmost sanctuary, where Jehovah 
dwelt on his mercy-seat, between the cherubim above the ark. Hence, "to 
enter within the veil " is to have the closest access to God. It was only 
passed by the high-priest once a year, on the Day of Atonement, in token 
of the mediation of Christ, who, with his own blood, hath entered for us 
within the veil which separates God's own abode from earth. In the tem- 
ple, the solemn barrier was at length profaned by a Roman conqueror, to 
warn the Jews that the privileges they had forfeited were " ready to vanish 
away ;" and the veil was at last rent by the hand of God himself, at the 
same moment that the body of Christ was rent upon the cross, to indicate 
that the entrance into the holiest of all is now laid open to all believers " by 
the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for 
us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh." The Holy Place was only 
entered by the priests daily, to offer incense at the time of morning and 
evening prayer, and to renew the lights on the golden candlestick ; and on 
the Sabbath, to remove the old shew-bread, and to place the new upon the 
table. 

(iii.) The Sacred Furniture and Instruments of the Tabernacle. 

1. In the Outer Court — 

(a) The Altar of Burnt-offering stood in the midst of the court, and 
formed the central point of the outer services, in which the people had a 
part. On it all sacrifices and oblations were presented, except the sin-offer- 
ings, which were burnt without the camp. It was a large hollow case or 
coffer, 5 cubits square by 3 in height, made of shittim-wood, overlaid with 
plates of brass, and with a grating of brass in the middle to place the wood 
upon, and rings to lift the grating. At the four corners were projections 
called " horns," the " laying hold " of which was the sign of throwing one's 
self upon the mercy of God, and a means of fleeing to take sanctuary from 
man's vengeance. Like the ark, the altar of incense, and the table of shew- 
bread, it was furnished with rings, through which were passed bars to carry 
it when the people were on the march. Its utensils of brass are enumerated 
in Exod. xxxviii. 3. The priests went up to it, not by steps, but by a 
sloping mound of earth. 

(3) The Brazen Laver, a vessel, on a foot, to hold water for the ablutions 
of the priests, stood between the altar of burnt-offering and the entrance to 



APPENDIX. 1069 

the holy place. It was made of the brass mirrors which were offered by the 
women. Its size and form are not mentioned ; it is commonly represented 
as round ; it need not have been very large, as the priests washed themselves 
at, not in it. 

2. In the Holy Place. — The furniture of the court was connected with sacri- 
fice, that of the sanctuary itself with the deeper mysteries of mediation and 
access to God. The First Sanctuary contained three objects : the altar of 
incense in the centre, so as to be directly in front of the ark of the covenant, 
the table of shew-bread on its right or north side, and the golden candlestick 
on the left or south side. These objects were all considered as being placed 
before the presence of Jehovah, who dwelt in the holiest of all, though with 
the veil between. 

(a) The Altar of Incense, a double cube of 1 cubit square by 2 high, with 
horns, was of shittim-wood, overlaid with gold, whence it is often called the 
Golden Altar, to distinguish it from the altar of burnt-offering, which was 
called the Brazen Altar. It had a cornice of gold, and four golden rings to 
receive the staves of shittim-wood overlaid with gold, for carrying it. Neither 
burnt offering, nor meat-offering, nor drink-offering, was to be laid upon it ; 
but the blood of the sin-offering of atonement was sprinkled upon its horns 
once a year. The inceuse burnt upon it was a sacred composition of spices 
of divine prescription. It was offered every morning and evening, at first 
by Aaron and his sons, and afterward by the priests officiating in weekly 
course, and by the high-priest on great occasions. The priest took some of 
the sacred fire off the altar of burnt-offering in his censer, and threw the in- 
cense upon it : then, entering the holy place, he emptied the censer upon the 
altar, prayed, and performed the other duties of his office. Meanwhile the 
people prayed outside ; and thus was typified the intercession of Christ in 
heaven, making his people's prayers on earth acceptable. It was highly 
criminal to offer " strange " incense or "strange" fire upon the altar, or 
for any one to usurp the function of the priests, or to make, or apply to any 
other use, the sacred incense. Nadab and Abihu were slain for the second 
of these offences ; King Uzziah was smitten with leprosy for the third ; and 
the punishment of death was appointed for the fourth. 

(j3) The Table of Shew-bread was an oblong table, with legs, 2 cubits long, 
1 broad, and 1^ high. It was of shittim-wood, covered with gold, and fin- 
ished, like the altar, with a golden rim, and four rings and staves. It was 
furnished with dishes, spoons, covers, and bowls, of pure gold. It stood on 
the north, or right side of the altar of incense. Upon this table were placed 
twelve cakes of fine flour, in two rows of six each, with frankincense upon 
each row. This " S/jeto-bread," as it was called from being exposed before 
Jehovah, was placed fresh upon the table every Sabbath by the priests, who 
ate the old loaves in the holy place. The letter of this law was transgressed 
on one occasion, which is rendered most memorable by Christ's appeal to it 
in one of his arguments with the Pharisees. "When David fled from Saul, 
Abimelech the priest gave to him and his companions, in their necessity, 
the shew-bread which had just been removed from the table. David pleaded 
for it as being in a manner common, since fresh bread had been sanctified in 
the sacred vessels, and the priest laid more stress on the purity of the young 
men than on the sacredness of the bread. It would be difficult to say whether 



1070 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the whole proceeding, including David's pretence of a mission from Saul, 
was morally justifiable. The point to which our Saviour's argument is direc- 
ted is somewhat different. He appeals to the case in which the sanctity both 
of the holy place and of holy things had been profaned by David's entrance 
into the sanctuary and use of the shew-bread, as an example of those necessi- 
ties which override the letter of the law, and he seems to leave the justifica- 
tion of the act to the reverence of the Jews for David. In the same spirit 
he appeals to the case of the priests, who profaned the strict letter of the 
Sabbatic law by performing the necessary work of the sacrifices. Both are 
used as illustrations of the great principle: "I will have mercy and not 
sacrifice." 

Besides the shew-bread, there was a drink-offering of wine placed in the 
covered bowls upon the table. Some of it was used for libations, and what 
remained at the end of the week was poured out before Jehovah. 

These types are too expressive for their general meaning to be misunder- 
stood. They represented under the old covenant the same truths which are 
set forth by the sacrament of the Lord's Supper under the new. In both 
cases we have a table, not an altar ; for in the Tabernacle the altar was dis- 
tinct, and in the Christian Church it is superseded, as the one sacrifice of 
Christ has been offered once for all. In the Tabernacle, moreover, as in the 
Church, it was the Lord's Table ; for the whole sanctuary was the house of 
Jehovah, and in its ante-chamber was the table of Jehovah, ever furnished 
with food for the use of those to whom He granted entrance into it ; and so 
is the table of the Lord Jesus spread in his Church on earth. Both tables 
are supplied with the same simple elements of necessary food, bread and 
wine, with the same reference to the body and blood of Christ, though this 
was still a mystery under the old covenent. Nor does the parallel fail in the 
point that the shew-bread might only be eaten by the priests ; for now the 
people of Christ are all priests to Him. 

(y) The Golden Candlestick, or rather Candelabrum (lamp-stand), was 
placed on the left or south side of the altar of incense. It was made of pure 
beaten gold, and weighed, with its instruments, a talent : its value has been 
estimated at $25,380, besides workmanship. Its form, as described in the 
Book of Exodus, agrees with the figure of the candlestick of the second tem- 
ple, as represented, together with the table of shew-bread and other Jewish 
trophies, on the arch of Titus. It had an upright stem, from which branched 
out three pairs of arms, each pair forming a semicircle, and their tops com- 
ing to the same level as the top of the stem, so as to form with it supports 
for seven lamps. It was relieved by ornamental knobs and flowers along the 
branches and at their junction with the stem. There were oil-vessels and 
lamp-tongs, or snuffers, for trimming the seven lamps, and dishes for carry- 
ing away the snuff; an office performed by the priest when he went into the 
sanctuary every morning to offer incense. All these utensils were of pure 
gold. The lamps were lighted at the time of the evening oblation. They 
are directed to be kept burning perpetually ; but from their being lighted in 
the evening, this seems to mean only during the night. The Rabbis say 
that the central lamp only was alight in the day-time. 

As in a house light is as necessary as food, and the lamp-stand, with its 
lighted lamp, was a piece of furniture as needful as the bread-vessel, so in 



APPENDIX. 1071 

the house of Jehovah, the candlestick symbolized the spiritual light of life, 
which he gives to His servants with the words by which they live. In the 
vision of the heavenly temple in the Apocalypse, the seven lights of the 
sanctuary before the Holiest of all are identified with "the seven spirits that 
are before the throne of God," the one perfect Spirit, whence come light, life, 
truth, and holiness ; and the seven branches of the candlestick are made to 
symbolize the seven churches, the representatives of the whole Church on 
earth. The figure is the full development of the words of Christ, u Ye are 
the light of the world ; "•" So let your light shine before men ; " and of St. 
Paul's exhortation, " Shine ye, as lights in the world, holding forth the word 
of life." 

3. In the Holy of Holies, within the veil and shrouded in darkness, there 
was but one object, the most sacred of the whole. The Ark of the Covenant, 
or the Testimony, was a sacred chest, containing the two tables of stone, in- 
scribed with the Ten Commandments. It was two cubits and a half in length, 
by a cubit and a half both in width and height. It was of shittim-wood, 
overlaid with pure gold, and had a golden mitre round the top. Through 
two pairs of golden rings on its sides passed two staves of shittim-wood, 
overlaid with gold, which were drawn forward so as to press against the veil, 
and thus to remind the priests in the holy place of the presence of the unseen 
ark. The cover of the ark was a plate of pure gold, overshadowed by two 
cherubim, with their faces bent down and their wings meeting. This was 
the very throne of Jehovah, who was therefore said to " dwell between the 
cherubim." It was also called the mercy-seat or propitiatory ', because Jeho- 
vah there revealed himself, especially on the great Day of Atonement, as 
"God pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin." Nor was it without the 
profoundest allusion to the coming dispensation of the Gospel, that God's 
throne of mercy covered and hid the tables of the law. The attitude of the 
cherubim was significant of the desire of angels toleara the Gospel mysteries 
that were hidden in the law. 

THE PRIESTS AND LEVITES. 

"Now when these things were thus ordered, the priests went always into 
the first Tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second 
went the high-priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he 
offered for himself and the errors of the people : the Holy Ghost this signify- 
ing, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet laid open, while the first 
Tabernacle was yet standing." Such is the apostolic summary of the offices 
of the piiesthood. The whole of the people were holy, and, in a spiritual 
sense, they were a nation of priests ; but from among them the tribe of 'Levi 
were chosen, as the reward of their devotion in the matter of the golden calf, 
to be the immediate attendants on Jehovah, that they might " minister in 
His courts.^ Out of that tribe again, the house of Amram was chosen (we 
know not whether according to primogeniture), to perform the functions of 
the priesthood, which devolved on Aaron, as the head of that house. lie 
was appointed to the office of High-priest, at first simply The Piiiest, as 
representing the whole order, the intercessor between Jehovah and the peo- 
ple ; his sons became the Priests, who alone could offer sacrifices ; and the 
rest of the tribe formed the class of Levites, who assisted in the services of 



1072 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

the Tabernacle. For this purpose the Levites are said to be " given" to 
Aaron and his sons, and hence they were called Nethinim (i. e., given) ; but 
afterward they were relieved of some of their enormous labor by a separate 
class of servants, such as the Gibeonites, who were made "hewers of wood 
and drawers of water ; " and in the later history of the Jews such servants 
formed a distinct body, under the same name of Nethinim. 

I. The High-priest. — We find from the very first the following charac- 
teristic attributes of Aaron and the high-priests his successors, as distin- 
guished from the other priests : — 

(i.) In the consecration to the office Aaron alone was anointed, whence 
one of the distinctive epithets of the high-priest was "the anointed priest." 
This appears also from Exod. xxix. 29, 30. The anointing of the sons of 
Aaron, i. e., the common priests, seems to have been confined to sprinkling 
their garments with the anointing oil. 

(ii.) The high-priest had a peculiar dress, which passed to his successor at 
his death. This dress consisted of eight parts, the breastplate, the ephod 
with its curious girdle, the robe of the ephod, the mitre, the broidered coat or 
diapered tunic, and the girdle, the materials being gold, blue, red, crimson, 
and fine (white) linen. To the above are added the breeches or drawers of 
linen ; and to make up the number eight, some reckon the high-priest's 
mitre, or the plate separately from the bonnet ; while others reckon the curi- 
ous girdle of the ephod separately from the ephod. Of these eight articles 
of attire, four — viz., the coat or tunic, the girdle, the breeches, and the bon- 
net or turban instead of the mitre, belonged to the common priests. Taking 
the articles of the high-priest's dress in the order in which they are enumera- 
ted above, we have — (a.) The Breastplate, or, as it is further named, the 
breastplate of judgment. It was, like the inner curtains of the Tabernacle, 
the veil, and the ephod, of " cunning work." The breastplate was originally 
two spans long, and one span broad, but when doubled it was square, the 
shape in which it was worn. It was fastened at the top by rings and chains 
of wreathen gold to the two onyx stones on the shoulders, and beneath with 
two other rings and a lace of blue to two corresponding rings in the ephod, 
to keep it fixed in its place above the curious girdle. But the most remarka- 
ble and most important parts of this breastplate were the twelve precious 
stones, set in four rows, three in a row, thus corresponding to the twelve 
tribes, and divided in the same manner as their camps were ; each stone 
having the name of one of the children of Israel engraved upon it. It was 
these stones which probably constituted the TJrim and Thummim. The 
addition of precious stones and costly ornaments expresses glory beyond 
simple justification.— (6.) The Ephod. This consisted of two parts, of which 
one covered the back, and the other the front, i. e., the breast and upper 
part of the body. These were clasped together on the shoulder with two 
large onyx stones, each having engraved on it six of the names of the tribes 
ot Israel. It was further united by a " curious girdle " of gold, blue, pur- 
ple, scarlet, and fine twined linen round the waist. — (c.) The Robe of the 
Ephod. This was of inferior material to the ephod itself, being all of blue, 
which implied its being only of " woven work." It was worn immediately 
under the ephod, and was longer than it. The blue robe had no sleeves, 
but only slits in the sides for the arms to come through. It had a hole for 



APPENDIX. 107 



the head to pass through, with a border round it of woven work, to prevent 
its being rent. The skirt of this robe had a remarkable trimming of pome- 
granates in blue, red, and crimson, with a bell of gold between each pome- 
granate alternately. The bells were to rrive a sound when the high-priest 
went in and came out of the holy place. — (d.) The mitre or upper turban, 
with its gold plate, engraved with Holiness to the Lord, fastened to ;t 
by a ribbon of blue. — (e.) The broidered coat was a tunic or long skirt of linen 
with a tessellated or diaper pattern, like the setting of a stone. The girdle, 
also of linen, was wound round the body several times from the breast down- 
ward, and the ends hung down to the ankles. The breeches or drawers, of 
linen, covered the loins and thighs ; and the bonnet was a turban of l'ien, 
partially covering the head, but not in the form of a cone like that of the 
high-priest, when the mitre was added to it. These four last were common 
to all priests. 

(iii.) Aaron had peculiar functions. To him alone it appertained, and h3 
alone was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies, which he did once a year, 
on the great Day of Atonement, when he sprinkled the blood of the sin-offer- 
ing on the menry-seat, and burnt incense within the veil. He is said b}*- the 
Talmudists not to have worn his full pontifical robes on this occasion, but 
to have been clad entirely in white linen. 

The high-priest had a peculiar place in the law of the manslayer, and his 
taking sanctuary in the cities of refuge. The manslayer might not leave 
the city of refuge during the life-time of the existing high-priest, who was 
anointed with the holy oil. It was also forbidden to the high-priest to fol- 
low a funeral, or rend his clothes for the dead, according to the precedent in 
Lev. x. 6. The other respects in which the high-priest exercised superior 
functions to the other priests arose rather from his position and opportuni- 
ties, than were distinctly attached to his office, and they consequently varied 
with the personal character and abilities of the high-priest. 

It does not appear by whose authority the high-priests were appointed to 
their office before there were kings of Israel. But as we find it invariably 
done by the civil power in later times, it is probable that, in the times pre- 
ceding the monarchy, it was by the elders, or Sanhedrim. 

The usual age for entering upon the functions of the priesthood is consid- 
ered to have been twenty years, though a priest or high-priest was not actu- 
ally incapacitated if he had attained to puberty. Again, no one that had a 
blemish could officiate at the altar, and illegitimate birth was also a bar to 
the high-priesthood. The high-priest held his office for life ; and it was the 
universal opinion of the Jews that the deposition of a high-priest, which in 
later times became so common, was unlawful. 

The Rabbins speak very frequently of one second in dignity to the high- 
priest, whom they call the sagan, and who often acted in the high-priest's 
room. He is the same who in the Old Testament is called " the second 
priest." Thus it is explained of Annas and Caiaphas, that Annas was 
sagan. Ananias is also thought by some to have been sagan — acting for the 
high-priest. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews sets forth the mystic meaning of his office, as 
a type of Christ, our great High-priest, who has passed into the heaven of 
heavens with his own blood, to appear in the presence of God for us ; and 
68 



1014 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

this is typified in the minutest particulars of his dress, his functions, and his 
privileges. In the Book of Revelation, the clothing of the son of man " with 
a garment down to the foot," and "with a golden girdle about the paps," 
are distinctly the robe and the curious girdle of the ephod, characteristic of 
the high-priest. 

II. The Priests. — All the sons of Aaron formed the order of the Priests. 
They stood between the high-priest on the one hand and the Levites on the 
other. The ceremony of their consecration is described in Ex. xxix., Lev. 
viii. The dress which they wore during their ministrations consisted of 
linen drawers, with a close-fitting cassock, also of linen, white, but with a 
diamond or chessboard pattern on it. This came nearly to the feet, and 
was to be worn in its garment shape (comp. John xix. 23). The white cas- 
sock was gathered round the body with a girdle of needlework, into which, 
as in the more gorgeous belt of the high-priest, blue, purple, and scarlet, 
were intermingled with white, and worked in the form of flowers. Upon 
their heads they were to wear caps or bonnets in the form of a cup-shaped 
flower, also of fine linen. In all their acts of ministration they were to be 
barefooted. 

Before they entered the Tabernacle they were to wash their hands and 
their feet. During the time of their ministration they were to drink no wine 
or strong drink. Except in the case of the nearest relationships, they were 
to make no mourning for the dead. They were not to shave their heads. 
They were to go through their ministrations with the serenity of a reveren- 
tial awe, not with the orgiastic wildness which led the priests of Baal in 
their despair to make cuttings in their flesh. The3 r were forbidden to marry 
an unchaste woman, or one who had been divorced, or the widow of any but 
a priest. 

Their chief duties were to watch over the fire on the altar of burnt-offer- 
ings, and to keep it burning evermore both by day and night, to feed the 
golden lamp outside the veil with oil, to offer the morning and evening sacri- 
fices, each accompanied with a meat-offering and a drink-offering, at the door 
of the Tabernacle. They were also to teach the children of Israel the stat- 
utes of the Lord. During the journeys in the wilderness it belonged to them 
to cover the ark and all the vessels of the sanctuary with a purple or scarlet 
cloth before the Levites might approach them. As the people started on 
each day's march they were to blow "an alarm " with long silver trumpets. 
Other instruments of music might be used by the more highly-trained 
Levites and the schools of the prophets, but the trumpets belonged only to 
the priests. 

Functions such as these were clearly incompatible with the common ac- 
tivities of men. On these grounds therefore a distinct provision was made 
for them. This consisted — (1.) of one-tenth of the tithes which the people 
paid to the Levites, i. e., one per cent, on the whole produce of the country. 
(2.) Of a special tithe every third year. (3.) Of the redemption-money, paid 
at the fixed rate of five shekels a head, for the first-born of man or beast. 
(4.) Of the redemption-money, paid in like manner for men or things specially 
dedicated to the Lord. (5.) Of spoil, captives, cattle, and the like taken in 
war. (6.) Of the shew-bread, the flesh of the burnt-offerings, peace-offerings, 
trespass-offerings, and, in particular, the heave-shoulder and the wave- 



APPENDIX. 1015 

breast. (7.) Of an undefined amount of the first-fruits of corn, wine, and 
oil. Of some of these, as "most holy," none but the priests were to par- 
take. It was lawful for their sons and daughters, and even in some cases 
for their home-born slaves, to eat of others. The stranger and the hired 
servant were in all cases excluded. (8.) On their settlement in Canaan the 
priestly families had thirteen cities assigned them, with "suburbs" or 
pasture-grounds for their flocks. These provisions were obviously intended 
to secure the religion of Israel against the dangers of a caste of pauper- 
priests, needy and dependent, and unable to bear their witness to the true 
faith. They were, on the other hand, as far as possible removed from 
the condition of a wealthy order. The standard of a priest's income, 
even in the earliest days after the settlement in Canaan, was miserably low. 

The earliest historical trace of any division of the priesthood, and corres- 
ponding cycle of services, belongs to the time of David. The priesthood was 
then divided into the four-and-twenty "courses " or orders, each of which 
was to serve in rotation for one week, while the further assignment of special 
services during the week was determined by lot. Each course appears to 
have commenced its work on the Sabbath, the outgoing priests taking the 
morning sacrifice, and leaving that of the evening to their successors. In 
this division, however, the two great priestly houses did not stand on an 
equality. The descendants of Ithamar were found to have fewer representa- 
tives than those of Eleazar, and sixteen courses accordingly were assigned 
to the latter, eight only to the former. The division thus instituted was 
confirmed by Solomon, and continued to be recognized as the typical num- 
ber of the priesthood. On the return from the Captivity there were found 
but four courses out of the twenty-four, each containing, in round num- 
bers, about a thousand. Out oi these, however, to revive at least the idea 
of the old organization, the four-and-twenty courses were reconstituted, 
bearing the same names as before, and so continued till the destruction of 
Jerusalem. 

III. The Levites were the assistants of the priests, and included all the 
males of the tribe of Levi who were not of the family of Aaron, and who 
were of the prescribed age, namely, from thirty to fifty. Their duties re- 
quired a man's full strength ; after the age of fifty they were relieved from 
all service, except that of superintendence. They had to assist the priests, 
to carry the Tabernacle and its vessels, to keep watch about the sanctuary, 
to prepare the supplies of corn, wine, oil, and so forth, and to take charge of 
the sacred treasures and revenues. 

The Levites were divided into three families, which bore the names of 
the three sons of Levi, the Gershonites, the Iyoiiatiiites, and the 
Meijarites; and each had their appointed functions in the service of the 
Tabernacle. 

(i.) The Kohatiiites had the precedence, as the house of Amram belonged 
to this family. They were to bear all the vessels of the sanctuary, the Ark 
itself included, after the priests had covered them with the dark-blue cloth 
which was to hide them from all profane gaze. 

(ii.) The Gershonites had to carry the tent-hangings and curtains. 

(iii.) The Merarites had the heavier burden of the boards, bars, and pil- 
lars of the Tabernacle. But the Gershonites and Merarites were allowed to 



1076 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

use the oxen and the wagons which were offered by the congregation. The 
more sacred vessels of the Kohathites were to be borne by them on their own 
shoulders. 

The whole tribe of Levi encamped close round the Tabernacle, the priests 
in front, on the east ; the Kohathites on the south ; the Gershonites on the 
west ; and the Merarites on the north. 

The Levites had no territorial possessions. In place of them, they received 
from the other tribes the tithes of the produce of the land, from which they, 
in their turn, offered a tithe to the priests. On their settlement in the 
promised land, the most laborious parts of their duty were over, and they 
were relieved from others by the submission of the Gibeonites and the con- 
quest of the Hivites, who became u hewers of wood and drawers of water." 
Hence their concentration about the Tabernacle was no longer necessary, 
and it was the more important for them to live among their brethren as 
teachers and religious guides. Forty-eight cities were assigned to the whole 
tribe, that is, on an average, four in the territory of each tribe ; thirteen 
being given to the priests, and the rest to the Levites. The following was 
their distribution throughout the tribes : 



I. Kohathites. 

a Pripsts / Judah and Simeon 9 

A - Fne8ts \ Benjamin 4 

{Epbraim , 4 
Dun 4 
Half-Manasseh (West) 2 

II. Gershonites. 

Half-Mauasseh (East) 2 

Issacbar 4 

Aslier 4 

Naphtali 3 

III. Merarites. 

Zebulun 4 

Reuben «. 4 

Gad 4 

48 

Six of these cities, three on each side of Jordan, were cities of refuge for the 
manslayer ; an institution which invested the Levites with the sacred char- 
acter of protectors from danger. The suburbs of these cities gave pasture to 
their flocks. 

After their settlement in their cities they took the place of the household 
priests (subject, of course, to the special rights of the Aaronic priesthood), 
sharing in all festivals and rejoicings. They preserved, transcribed, and 
interpreted the law, which they solemnly read every seventh year at the 
Feast of Tabernacles. They pronounced the curses from Mount Ebal. 

At a still later time they became the learned class in the community, the 
chroniclers of the time in which they lived. One of the first to bear the 
title of " Scribe " is a Levite, and this is mentioned as one of their special 
offices under Josiah. They are described as "officers and judges" under 
David, and as such are employed u in all the business of Jehovah, and in 
the service of the king." They are the agents of Jehoshaphat and Heze- 
kiah in their work of reformation, and are sent forth to proclaim and en- 
force the law. Under Josiah the function has passed into a title, and they 
are "the Levites that taught all Israel." The two books of Chronicles bear 
unmistakable marks of having been written by men whose interests were all 



APPENDIX. 1071 

gathered round the services of the Temple, and who were familiar with its 
records. 

The former subdivisions of the tribe were recognized in the assignment of 
the new duties connected with the temple, and the Kohathites retained their 
old pre-eminence. They have four " princes," while Merari and Gershon 
have but one each. They supplied, from the families of the Izharites and 
Hebronites, the "officers and judges." To them belonged the sons of 
Koran, with Heman at their head, playing upon psalteries and harps. They 
were "over the work of the service, keepers of the gates of the Tabernacle." 
It was their work to prepare the shew-bread every Sabbath. The Gershon- 
ites were represented in like manner in the temple-choir by the sons of 
Asaph ; Merari by the sons of Ethan or Jeduthun. Now that the heavier 
work of conveying the Tabernacle and its equipments from place to place 
was no longer required of them, and that psalmody had become the most 
prominent of their duties, they were to enter on their work at the earlier age 
of twenty. 

SACRIFICES AND OBLATIONS. 

The Law of Sacrifices and Oblations included a perpetual memorial of 
Jehovah's covenant with the people, an acknowledgment of His mercies 
and an expiation for sin. 

Sacrifices had been offered ever since the fall. We read of the whole burnt- 
offerings, such as those of Abel and Noah, the thank-offering, as that of 
Jethro, and the sacrifices by which covenants were ratified. To these the 
law of Moses added the special sacrifices for sins and trespasses, and for par- 
ticular classes of persons (as the priests) the meat-offerings and the drink- 
offerings. It established the distinction between sacrifices and oblations : in 
the former, the thing offered was wholly or partially destroyed, as being 
Jehovah's only ; in the latter it was acknowledged to be His gift, and then 
enjoyed by the offerer. 

There is also the distinction between bloody and unbloody sacrifices ; be- 
tween slain victims, and offerings of meal, corn, cakes, or wafers, and liba- 
tions of wine. The latter were sometimes mere oblations, but sometimes 
proper sacrifices, being offered either with the burnt-offerings, or, in the case 
of the poor, in substitution for them. The sacrifices of blood again are 
divided into those which were offered in expiation of sin, and those in which 
the offerer acknowledged God's mercies to him by the voluntary surrender 
of a costly thing, an act of piety, which is especially contemplated in the 
ordinary use of the word sacrifice. This idea involves the duty of bringing 
our best to God in proportion to our means, and stamps the offering of the 
maimed, or what costs us nothing, as an impious insult to Jehovah. 

In those of the sacrifices, in which the victim was not entirely burnt, a 
portion of it was used as food, both by the priests, who were " to live of the 
altar," and also by the offerers themselves. This is a usage of the greatest 
antiquity among all nations ; as we see, for example, in Homer. It seems 
natural that worshippers should rejoice and feast in the presence of the God 
with whom they were reconciled, or whose goodness they came to confess by 
sacrifice. But in the Mosaic dispensation, there seems to be a deeper signifi- 
cance in the partaking of the sacred things offered to God, a type of the 



1078 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

spiritual sustenance which is received from Christ, who connects his death 
with our life, by saying, ''Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for 
you." " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye 
have no life in you." 

This custom had also, like many of the laws of Moses, an indirect but 
most important influence on the coinmou life of the people. Natives of warm 
climates use but little animal food ; nor are a pastoral people, like the Israel- 
ites, an exception to the rule. They live on the milk of their flocks and 
herds, but use their flesh very sparingly ; they do not eat up their capital. 
Sacrifices, therefore, were their feasts when they partook of meat ; but under 
restrictions, which, being established first on the ground of ceremonial clean- 
ness, in relation to God, ministered to their personal purity and health. This 
will be presently seen, both with reference to the animals that might and 
might not be sacrificed, and to those parts of them which were burnt and 
those which were used for food. 

The sacrifices are divided into burnt-offerings, with the accompanying 
meat-offerings, peace-offerings, sin-offerings, for sins of ignorance, and trespass- 
offerings for sins committed knowingly. The three former were of the nature 
of gifts, the two latter of propitiatory sacrifices ; but even in the gift, as com- 
ing from a sinful man, there was present the idea of propitiation by the 
blood of the victim ; and it was always preceded by a sin-offering. 

I. The Burnt-offering-, or whole burnt-offering, or perfect sacrifice, was 
so called because the victim was wholly consumed by fire upon the altar of 
burnt-offering, and so, as it were, sent up to God on the wings of fire. This 
idea, which is expressed in the account of Noah's sacrifice, and which con- 
stantly recurs, both in the Scriptures and in profane authors, is implied in 
the Hebrew word which signifies to ascend. The sacrifice was a memorial 
of God's covenant, and signified that the offerer belonged wholly to God, and 
that he dedicated himself soul and body to Him, and placed his life at His 
disposal. And every such sacrifice was a type of the perfect offering made 
by Christ, on behalf of the race of man, of his human nature and will to the 
will of the Father. 

Burnt-offerings were either made on behalf of the whole people, or by one 
or more individuals, who must bring them of their own free will. Only 
three kinds of animals might be offered, and they must be free from disease 
or blemish. To offer the unclean, maimed, or diseased in sacrifice was an 
abomination to Jehovah. (1.) Of the herd, a young bullock, of not less than 
one nor more than three years, generally of the third year. (2.) Of the flock, 
a lamb or kid, a male of the like age, but generally of the first year. (3.) 
Of birds, turtle-doves or young pigeons, without distinction of sex. The 
victim was brought to the north side of the altar in the court of the Taber- 
nacle, where the offerer laid his hand upon its head, in token of its being a 
substitute for his own life, and slew it himself by cutting its throat, or, if a 
bird, wringing off its head and pressing out the blood. In public sacrifices, 
these acts were done by the priest. The Levites assisted, and in later times 
they slew all the victims. The blood, u which is the life," was received in a 
basin, and sprinkled by the priest round the altar. The victim was then 
flayed, the skin being the perquisite of the priest. It was cut in pieces, sig- 
nifying the laying open to the eye of God of the inmost being of the offerer ; 



APPENDIX. 1079 

and the pieces were laid upon the wood on the altar and consumed, but the 
birds were not divided. Each day's sacrifices burnt on through the night, 
the sacred fire never being suffered to go out ; and in the morning the ashes 
were carried by the priest into a clean place without the camp. 

Burnt-offerings were made on the following occasions: — (1.) The Daily 
Sacrifice, of a yearling lamb or kid, was offered at the times of morning and 
evening prayer, the third and ninth hours from sunrise, before the priest 
went into the Tabernacle to burn incense. This sacrifice especially typified 
the offering of Christ, who was pointed out by John the Baptist (about the 
third hour, it is supposed) as "the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin 
of the world," and who died upon the cross at the very time of the evening 
sacrifice. 

(2.) The Sabbath burnt-offering was the daily sacrifice doubled. 

(3.) The burnt-offerings at the Festivals of the New Moon, the three great 
feasts, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Trumpets, generally two bul- 
locks, a ram, and seven lambs. 

(4.) Private burnt-offerings prescribed by the law, at the consecration of 
priests, the purification of women, the removal of leprosy or other ceremo- 
nial uncleanness, the performance or the accidental breach of the vow of a 
Nazarite. 

(5.) Free-will burnt-offerings were made either in general acknowledgment 
of God's mercies (a thank-offering) or in performance of a vow. They were 
chiefly brought on occasions of great solemnity, as at the dedication of the 
Tabernacle and of the Temple. 

II. The Meat-offering and the Drink-offering always accompanied 
the burnt-offering, for which indeed the meat-offering might be substituted 
by the poor. As the burnt-offering signified the consecration of life to God, 
both that of the offerer himself and of his living property, so in the meat- 
offering the produce of the land was presented before Jehovah, as being Ilia 
gift ; iu both cases with the devout acknowledgment : "Of thine own have 
we given thee." The name of the meat-offering, Minchah, signified in old 
Hebrew a gift in general, and especially one from an inferior to a superior. 
It is applied alike to the offerings of Cain and Abel, as a general name for a 
sacrifice. 

In the law of Moses it signifies an offering of corn, usually in the form of 
flour, with oil and frankincense, the quantities varying for a lamb, a ram, or 
a bullock. It was sometimes made with the oil into cakes or wafers, which 
must be free from leaven and honey. A special form of meat-offering was 
that of the first-fruits of corn in the ear, parched and bruised. All meat- 
offerings were to be seasoned with " the salt of the covenant," as a sign of 
incorruptness, and of the savor of earnest piety. A portion of the meat- 
offering and of the oil was burnt by the priest upon the altar of burnt-offer- 
ing, with all the frankincense ; and the rest belonged to the priests, who must 
eat it without leaven beside the altar, as u a thing most holy of the offerings 
of Jehovah made by fire." The meat-offerings of the priests themselves were 
to be wholly burnt. The drink-offerings of the daily and special sacrifices 
were poured out before Jehovah in the holy place ; and it does not appear 
that the priests were ever permitted to partake of them. Indeed, to have 
done so would have been a breach of the prohibition of wine during their 
service. 



1080 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

III. The Peace-offering was not an atoning sacrifice to make peace 
with God, but a joyful celebration of peace made through the covenant. In 
this part of the ritual, more than in any other, we see Jehovah present in 
His house, inviting the worshipper to feast with Him. Peace-offerings were 
presented either as a thanksgiving, or in fulfilment of a vow, or as & free-will 
offering of love and joy. They were of the flock or the herd, like the burnt- 
offerings, but they might be male or female. They were slain with the same 
ceremonies as the burnt-offering ; but only a part was burnt upon the altar, 
namely, all the fat, the kidneys, the caul or midriff, and, in the case of a 
lamb, the rump. These parts formed, according to Oriental tastes, the deli- 
cacies of the feast, and therefore they were offered to Jehovah ; and they are 
emphatically called His bread. The breast and the shoulder were the por- 
tion of the priests, w r ho might eat them in any clean place with their sons 
and daughters. They were called the wave-breast and the heave-shoulder, 
from the motions made in offering them before Jehovah. The priest also 
took one of the unleavened cakes or leavened loaves, which were offered as a 
meat-offering with the peace-offering, having first heaved it before God. 
These motions seem to indicate the joy of a feast ; and with joy the worshipper 
was to eat the rest of the flesh of the sacrifice and the bread of the meat- 
offering, under certain restrictions, to insure ceremonial purity. 

Peace-offerings might be brought at any time ; but they were prescribed 
on the following occasions : at the consecration of priests ; the dedication of 
the Tabernacle ; the purification of a leper ; and the expiration of a Naza- 
rite's vow. 

IV. The Sin-offering was an expiatory sacrifice for sins of ignorance, 
committed either by a x>riest, unconsciously contracting sins from the people 
in his office ; or by the congregation, incurring the displeasure of Jehovah for 
a reason not discovered ; or by a ruler, ignorantly trangressing anj r of God's 
laws ; or by one of the people, finding that he had unintentionally been guilty 
of any sin ; aud also as a purification from possible sin and uncleanness in 
general. For each of these cases special victims were to be offered with 
special ceremonies. The most important of these were, in the two former 
cases, the sprinkling of the blood seven times before the veil, and placing it 
on the horns of the altar and burning the flesh of the victim without the 
camp— a type of Christ's suffering without the gate for the people's sin. The 
flesh of the other sin-offerings belonged to the priests : in all cases the fat 
was burnt on the altar. Sin-offerings formed a part of all great solemnities, 
especially on the day of atonement. They were also offered at the purifica- 
tion of a leper, or of a woman after child-birth. In the latter case the offer- 
ing was a lamb, or, /or the poor, a pair of turtle-doves or pigeons ; one for the 
burnt-offering, and one for the sin-offering. 

V. Trespass-offerings, for sins committed knowingly, as well as for 
acts of ceremonial uncleanness, are not very clearly distinguished from sin- 
offerings. The chief difference of form, besides some points in the ceremo- 
nial, was that they were offered only for individuals. As to spirit and motive, 
the distinction seems to be that sins committed in rashness, as by an oath, 
or in ignorance of a law that ought to have been known, came under the 
head of trespass: "Though he wish it not, yet he is guilty, and shall bear 
his iniquity." The chief offences which required trespass-offerings were, 



APPENDIX. 1081 

keeping back evidence, touching unclean things, swearing rash oaths, sins 
in holy things, violation of trust, and some others. In every case of injury 
to property the offering must be accompanied with restitution to the whole 
value, and one-fifth in addition. 

VI. Oblations are not clearly distinguished from those sacrifices which 
were in the nature of gifts ; but some of them require to be mentioned sepa- 
rately : — 

(1.) The Shew-bread and Incense, which were perpetually offered in the 
Holy Place. (See above.) 

(2.) Free Oblations, the fruits of vows and promises. 

(3.) Prescribed Oblations, namely — (a.) The First-fruits of corn, which 
were offered on the Day of Pentecost, and of wine, oil, and wool. These 
were the perquisites of the priests. ()3.) The First-born of man and beast, 
which were redeemed, at first by exchange against the Levites, and after- 
ward by a payment of five shekels per head ; but the firstlings of clean ani- 
mals, the cow, sheep, or goat, were unredeemable, and were offered in sa- 
crifice in the same manner as a peace-offering, (y.) Tithes of the produce of 
the land : the first annually, the second every three years for the Levites, and 
the third for the poor. 

THE HOLINESS OF THE PEOPLE. 

The holiness of the people, as the children of God, His " saints who had 
made a covenant with Him by sacrifice," was a principle as sacred as the 
consecration of the priests. They, like the children of the New Covenant, 
were "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar 
people," the purchased possession of Jehovah ; and for both there was the 
same simple law : " Be ye Holy, for I am Holy." This principle, from 
which Paul so often deduces the spiritual law of the complete devotion of the 
whole nature to God's service, was enforced upon the Jews by ceremonies 
and restrictions reaching to every detail of their daily lives. It is the central 
subject of the Book of Leviticus, which gradually rises from the laws of sacri- 
fice to the assertion and development of the holiness and purity of the people, 
in person, act, speech, and property. 

The following institutions were founded on this principle : — 

Circumcision is only enjoined in one passage of the law of Moses. It had 
already been fully established, and Moses alludes to its spiritual sense, the 
circumcision of the heart, in language similar to that of Paul. The words 
of Christ, " Moses gave you circumcision, not because it is of Moses, but of 
the fathers," refer to the full account of the institution in the book of Gene- 
sis, which rendered its repetition in the later books unnecessary. 

The Dedication of the First-born of men and beasts, and the offering of the 
First-fruits of all produce. 

The Preservation of Personal Purity, especially by the strict laws against 
all unnatural marriages and lusts, and against fornication and prostitution. 
The law of Moses, like that of Christ, takes cognizance of sins against a man's 
own self, and that not so much in the light of self-interest, or even of self- 
respect, but from that principle of holiness to God which is so emphatically 
laid down by the Apostle Paul. 

Provisions for Purification : — (1.) As a religious ceremonial, observed both 



1082 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

by priests and people in divine worship. (2.) From personal uncleanness. 
(3.) From leprosy, in persons, clothes, or houses. The means of purification 
were washing, the sprinkling of blood, anointing with oil, and the lustration 
by the ashes of the red heifer. In some cases, as in leprosy, unclean persons 
were shut out from the camp. 

The distinction between Clean and Unclean Animals for food as well as 
sacrifice. Unclean animals were those strangled, or which had died a natu- 
ral death, or had been killed by beasts or birds of prey ; whatever beast did 
not both part the hoof and chew the cud ; and certain other smaller animals 
rated as "creeping things;" certain classes of birds mentioned in Lev. xi. 
and Deut. xiv., twenty or twenty-one in all ; whatever in the waters had not 
both fins and scales ; whatever winged insect had not, besides four legs, the 
two hind-legs for leaping ; besides things offered in sacrifice to idols ; and all 
blood, or whatever contained it ; as also all fat, at any rate that disposed in 
masses among the intestines, and probably wherever discernible and separa- 
ble among the flesh. The eating of blood was prohibited even to "the 
stranger that sojourneth among you." The fat was claimed as a burnt- 
offering, and the blood enjoyed the highest sacrificial esteem. In the two 
combined the entire victim was by representation offered, and to transfer 
either to human use was to deal presumptuously with the most holy things. 
But besides this, the blood was esteemed as " the life " of the creature, and 
a mysterious sanctity beyond the sacrificial relation thereby attached to it. 
Hence we read, "Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, 
even that soul shall be cut off from his people." Whereas the offender in 
other dietary respects was merely "unclean until even." Sanitary reasons 
have been sought for these laws ; and there may be something in this view, 
though their first signification was religious. Under the New Covenant, 
the first lesson that was taught Peter, as a preparation of preaching the 
Gospel to Gentile proselytes, was " not to call any thing common or unclean." 
On the other hand, the apostles and the primitive Church extended to Gen- 
tile converts the restriction from eating blood and things strangled, appa- 
rently as a precaution against their taking part in heathen festivals, just as 
they were recommended by Paul to abstain from things offered to idols. To 
make these restrictions a part of the permanent law of Christianity is opposed 
to the whole spirit of the Gospel. 

The Laws against Personal Disfigurement, by shaving the head and cutting 
the flesh, especially as an act of mourning, have also reference to the cus- 
toms of the heathen. The humane restriction on the number of stripes that 
might be inflicted was designed to prevent a man's degradation in the eyes 
of his brethren. 

The Provisions for the Poor, regarded as brethren in the common bond of 
the covenant of God. Gleanings in the field and vineyard were their legal 
right : slight trespass was allowed, such as plucking corn while passing through 
a field, provided that it was eaten on the spot ; the second tithe was to be 
bestowed partly in charity ; loages were to be paid day by day ; loans might 
not be refused, nor usury taken from an Israelite ; pledges must not be inso- 
lently or ruinously exacted ; no favor must be shown between rich and poor 
in dispensing justice; and besides all this, there are the most urgent injuno 
tions to kindness to the poor, the widow and the orphan, and the strongest 
denunciations of all oppression. 



APPENDIX. 1083 

The care taken to enforce humanity in general may be regarded as an ex- 
tension of the same principle ; for the truest motive to humanity is the con- 
stant sense of man's relation to his Heavenly Maker, Father, and Master. 
For example, the state of slavery was mitigated by the law that death under 
chastisement was punishable, and that maiming at once gave liberty. Fugi- 
tive slaves from foreign nations were not to be given up ; and stealing and 
selling a man was punished with death. The law even " cared for oxen," 
declaring, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." 
It went further, and provided against that abominable law of our corrupt 
nature, which finds pleasure in wanton cruelty, adding such precepts as those 
which forbade the parent bird to be captured with its young, or the kid to be 
boiled in its mother's milk. 

The institutions of the Sabbatic Year and the Year of Jubilee were a great 
public homage to the principle, that both the people and their property were 
sacred to Jehovah ; but they may be most fitly described under the next head 
of Sacred Seasons. Indeed, if we were to carry out the principle to all its 
consequences, it might include the whole civil and criminal law. 

But what strictly belongs to this head must not be dismissed without 
noticing the constant perversion of the idea of personal and national sanctity 
by the Jews in all their after history. They forgot the duty of purity toward 
God in the pride of superiority over other men, and became exclusive in- 
stead of truly holy. And just as their holiness was the type of Christian 
dedication to God, so is there the danger of our following their great mis- 
take, especially by looking at the Old Testament otherwise than in the light 
of the New. 

THE SACRED SEASONS. 

The religious times ordained in the law fall under three heads : 

I. Those connected with the institution of the Sabbath— namely, 

1. The weekly Sabbath itself. 

2. The Feast of the New Moon. 

3. The Sabbatical Month and the Feast of Trumpets. 

4. The Sabbatical Year. 

5. The Year of Jubilee. 

II. The Three Great Historical Festivals— namely, 

1. The Passover. 

2. The Feast of Pentecost. 

3. The Feast of Tabernacles. 

III. The Day of Atonement. 

To these must be added IV., the festivals established after the Captivity— 
namely. 

1. The Feast of Purim of Lots. 

2. The Feast of Dedication. 

I.— Festivals connected with the Sabbath. 
(1.) The Sabbath is so named from a word signifying rest. The conse- 
cration of the Sabbath was coeval with the Creation ; for on no principle of 
sound criticism can the narrative of the Creation be severed from its con- 
cluding words : " And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it ; bo- 



1084 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

cause that in it he had rested from all His work, which God created and 
made." The opinion, that these words are an auticipatory reference to the 
Fourth Commandment, can only have arisen from the error of regarding the 
law of Sinai as altogether new. The only argument in support of that opin- 
ion is the absence of any record of the observance of the Sabbath between 
the Creation and the Exodus. It might just as well be said that the Fourth 
Commandment was not of immediate application, since the Sabbath is not 
mentioned from Moses to David. But this is just in accordance with the 
plan of the Scripture narrative, in which regular and ordinary events are 
unnoticed. The same is true of circumcision, which is not mentioned after 
its first institution, not even in the case of Isaac, till the time of Moses ; but 
its observance by the patriarchs is implied by their imposing it on the 
Shechemites. So likewise the celebration of sacrifice is onty mentioned on 
a few special occasions. And so with the Sabbath : there are not wanting 
indirect evidences of its observance, as the intervals between Noah's sending 
forth the birds out of the ark, an act naturally associated with the weekly 
service, and in the week of a wedding celebration ; but, when a special occa- 
sion arises, in connection with the prohibition against gathering manna on 
the Sabbath, the institution is mentioned as one already known. And that 
this was especially one of the institutions adopted by Moses from the an- 
cient patriarchal usage, is implied in the very words of the law, "Remember 
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." But even if such evidence were wanting, 
the reason of the institution would be a sufficient proof. It was to be a joy- 
ful celebration of God's completion of His creation : and, "when the morn- 
ing stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy " at only wit- 
nessing the work, is it to be supposed that the new-made man himself post- 
poned his joy and worship for twenty-five centuries ? It has indeed been 
said that Moses gives quite a different reason for the institution of the Sab- 
bath, as a memorial of the deliverance from Egyptian bondage. As if Moses, 
in his repetition of the law, had forgotten the reason given by God himself 
from Sinai. The words added in Deuteronomy are a special motive for the 
joy with which the Sabbath should be celebrated, and for the kindness 
which extended its blessings to the slave and beast of burden as well as the 
master: "that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as 
thou." These attempts to limit the ordinance proceed from an entire mis- 
conception of its spirit, as if it were a season of stern privation rather than 
of special privilege. But, in truth, the prohibition of work is only subsidiary 
to the positive idea of joyful rest and recreation, in communion with Jehovah, 
who himself " rested and was refreshed." It was to be a sacred pause in the 
ordinary labor by which man earns his bread ; the curse of the fall was to be 
suspended for one day ; and, having spent that day in joyful remembrance 
of God's mercies, man had a fresh start in his course of labor. When God 
sanctified the day He blessed it ; made it happy when He made it holy ; and 
the practical difficulty in realizing this union arises on the one hand, from 
seeking happiness in gain, and on the other from confounding recreation 
with sinful pleasure. A great snare, too, has always been hidden in the word 
work, as if the commandment forbade occupation and imposed idleness. A 
consideration of the spirit of the law and of Christ's comments on it will 
show that it is work for worldly gain that was to be suspended ; and hence 



APPENDIX. 1085 

the restrictive clause is prefaced with the positive command : " Sixflays shalt 
thou labor, and do all thy work ; " for so only could the Sabbatic rest be fairly 
earned. Hence, too, the stress constantly laid on permitting the servant 
and beast of burden to share the rest, which selfishness would grudge to 
them. Thus the spirit of the Sabbath was joy, refreshment, and mercy, aris- 
ing from remembrance of God's goodness as the Creator, and as the deliverer 
from bondage. 

These views are practically illustrated by the manner in which the Israel- 
ites were to spend, and in which the prophets afterward reproved them for 
not spending, the Sabbath and the other festivals. The Sabbath was a per- 
petual sign and covenant, and the holiness of the day is connected with the 
holiness of the people: "That ye may know that I am Jehovah that doth 
sanctify you." Joy was the key-note of their service. Moses declared that 
a place of sacrifice should be given them ; "And there shall ye eat before 
Jehovah your God, and ye shall rejoice, ye and your households." The 
Psalmists echo back the same spirit : " This is the day which Jehovah hath 
made ; we will rejoice, and be glad in it." Isaiah reproves the fasts which 
were kept with mere outward observance, in place of acts of charity, by 
promising that those who called the Sabbath a delight, and honored God by 
doiug His works in it, should delight themselves in Jehovah. Nehemiah 
commanded the people, on a day holy to Jehovah, "Mourn not, nor weep : 
eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom noth- 
ing is prepared." 

The Sabbath is named as a day of special worship in the sanctuary. It 
was proclaimed as a holy convocation. The public religious services consisted 
in the doubling of the morning and evening sacrifice, and the renewal of the 
shew-bread in the holy place. In later times the worship of the sanctuary 
was enlivened by sacred music. On this day the people were accustomed 
to consult their prophets, and to give to their children that instruction in 
the truths recalled to memory by the day, which is so repeatedly enjoined 
as the duty of parents ; it was "the Sabbath of Jehovah," not only in the 
sanctuary, but "in all their dwellings." It is quite true that we have but 
little information on this part of the subject in the Scriptures themselves, 
but the inferences drawn from what is told us, and from the character of 
the day, are confirmed by the testimon3 r of later writers, and by the system 
of public worship in the synagogues, which we find in full operation at the 
time of Christ. 

The prohibitory part of the law is general ; and the only special cases 
mentioned relate to the preparation of food. The manna was not given on 
the Sabbath, but a double supply was to be gathered on the day before, just 
as the rest of the Sabbatic year was compensated by the extraordinary fer- 
tility of the year before. No fire was to be kindled on the Sabbath, under 
the penalty of death, which was inflicted on a man who went out to gather 
sticks on the Sabbath. Its observance is enjoined in the time of earing and 
harvest, when there was a special temptation to find an excuse for work. 
The habitual transgression of these laws, by priests as well as people, was 
denounced by the prophets, and excited the reforming zeal of Nehemiah 
after the Babylonish Captivity. The later Rabbis treated the law as a mat- 
ter of subtle casuistry ; proceeding from the general rule of abstaining from 



1086 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

manual (fccts to the minute enumeration of the prohibited actions ; and it 
was in reply to objections based on such rules, that Christ maintained the 
true spirit of the law. 

(2.) The completion of the month was observed by the Feast of the 
New Moon. In every nation which uses a strictly lunar calendar, it is 
necessary to have a distinct public announcement of the beginning of each 
month, whether it be determined by an exact astronomical computation of 
the time of the moon's change, or by the first sight of her new crescent. 
This announcement was made to Israel by the sounding of the two sacred sil- 
ver trumpets. The day was not kept as a Sabbath, but, besides the daily sac- 
rifice, a burnt-offering was made of two bullocks, a ram, and seven lambs, 
with a meat and drink-offering, and a goat for a sin-offering. In later times, 
the kings offered sacrifices and feasted on the new moon, and pious disciples 
chose this as a stated period for visiting the prophets. The feast seems to 
have been gradually corrupted by the heathen worship of the moon itself. 
It is one of the feasts left by the Apostle to Christian liberty. 

(3.) The Sabbatical Month and the Feast of Trumpets. — The 
month of Tisri, being the seventh of the ecclesiastical, and the first of the 
civil year, had a kind of Sabbatic character. The calendar was so arranged 
that its first day fell on a Sabbath (that, no doubt, next after the new moon), 
and this, the civil New Year's Day, was ushered in by the blowing of 
trumpets, and was called the Feast of Trumpets. It was a holy convocation ; 
and it had its special sacrifices, in addition to those of other new moons, 
namely, for the burnt-offering, a young bullock, a ram, and seven lambs, 
with a meat and drink-offering, and a young goat for a sin-offering. This 
month also was marked by the great Day of Atonement on the tenth, and the 
Feast of Tabernacles, the greatest of the whole year, which lasted from the 
fifteenth to the twenty-second of the month. Thus it completed the Sabbatic 
cycle of seven months, in which all the great festivals were kept. 

(4.) The Sabbatical Year. — As each seventh day and each seventh 
month were holy, so was each seventh year. It was based on the principle 
of Jehovah's property in the land, which was therefore to keep its Sabbath 
to him ; and it was to be a season of rest for all, and of especial kindness to 
the poor. The land was not to be sown, nor the vineyards and olive-yards 
dressed ; and neither the spontaneous fruits of the soil, nor the produce of 
the vine and olive, were to be gathered ; but all was to be left for the poor, 
the slave, the stranger, and the cattle. The law was accompanied by a 
promise of treble fertility in the sixth year, the fruit of which was to be 
eaten till the harvest sown in the eighth year was reaped in the ninth. But 
the people were not debarred from other sources of subsistence, nor was the 
year to be spent in idleness. They could fish and hunt, take care of their 
bees and flocks, repair their buildings and furniture, and manufacture their 
clothing. Still, as an agricultural people, they would have much leisure ; 
they would observe the Sabbatic spirit of the year by using its leisure for the 
instruction of their families in the law, and for acts of devotion ; and in ac- 
cordance with this there was a solemn reading of the law to the people as- 
sembled at the Feast of Tabernacles. The Sabbatic year is also called the 
"year of release," because in it creditors were bound to release poor debtors 
from their obligations ^ with a special injunction not to withhold a loan 



APPENDIX. 1087 

because the year of release was near. The release of a Hebrew slave took 
place likewise, not only in the Sabbatic year, but in the seventh year of his 
captivity. 

The constant neglect of this law from the very first was one of the national 
sins that were punished by the Babylonian Captivity. Moses warned Israel 
of the retribution, that their land should be desolate till it had enjoyed its 
Sabbaths ; and the warning was fulfilled in the seventy years' duration of 
the Captivity. 

(5.) The Year of Jubilee was every fiftieth 3 r ear, coming therefore 
after a Sabbatic series of Sabbatic years. The notion that it was in the 
forty-ninth and not the fiftieth year, is an assumption from the improba- 
bility of the land being left untilled for two successive years ; but it is op- 
posed to the plain statement of the law, which directs seven Sabbaths of 
years to be counted, even forty-nine years, and then that the Jubilee should 
be proclaimed by the sounding of the trumpet. Thus the Year of Jubilee 
completed each half-century ; and formed a Pentecost of years. 

Its beginning is fixed for the tenth of the seventh month (Tisri), the great 
Day of Atonement. It was doubtless after the sacrifices of that solemn day 
were ended, that the trumpet of jubilee pealed forth its joyful notes, pro- 
claiming " liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison door to them 
that were bound." The land was left uncultivated, as in the Sabbatic year. 
The possessions which poverty had compelled their owners to alienate 
returned to the families to whom they had been allotted in the first division 
of the Holy Land. This applied to fields and houses in the country, and to 
the houses of Levites in the walled cities ; but other houses in such cities, 
if not redeemed within a year from their sale, remained the perpetual pro- 
perty of the buyer. In all transfers of property, the value was to be com- 
puted by the number of " years of fruits " (that is, apparently, exclusive of 
Sabbatic years) till the next Jubilee : so that what was sold was the posses- 
sion of the land for that term. A property might be redeemed at any inter- 
vening period, either by its owner, or by his nearest kinsman (the Go'el), at 
a price fixed on the same principle. Land sanctified to Jehovah by the 
owner might be redeemed, at any time before the next Jubilee, by payment 
of one-fifth in addition to the estimated value of the crops ; but if not 
redeemed before the Jubilee, it then became devoted forever. Land sancti- 
fied by its owner after he had sold it could not be redeemed ; and land 
devoted by the purchaser returned at the Jubilee to the owner. The whole 
institution was based on the principle that the land was God's, who granted 
to each family its own portion. It was a practical solution of the most per- 
plexing questions concerning the right of property in the land, and a safe- 
guard against its accumulation in the hands of great proprietors. 

All Hebrew slaves, whether to their brethren or to resident foreigners, 
were set free in the Year of Jubilee. This applied alike to those who had 
fallen into servitude since the last Sabbatic year, and to those who had 
chosen to remain in servitude by the ceremony of boring the ear. Provision 
was made for the redemption of the slave meanwhile in a manner similar to 
that of the redemption of the land. Thus, as in the restitution of tlie land, 
the principle was asserted, that the people were Jehovah's only, his servants 
redeemed from Egypt, and incapable therefore of becomim: bondmen to any 
one but him. 



1088 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

It has been asserted that debts were remitted in the Year of Jubilee, and 
some go so far as to maintain that the remission in the Sabbatic year was 
merely a suspension of their exaction. But the Mosaic law plainly states 
that debts were remitted in the Sabbatic year, and says nothing of their 
remission at the Jubilee. 

The Jubilee completed the great Sabbatic cycle, at the close of which, in 
a certain sense, u all things were made new." The trumpet which announced 
it, immediately after the reconciliation of the people to Jehovah by the 
atonement, was His voice proclaiming the restoration of the social order 
which He had at first established in the state, on the basis of liberty and the 
means of livelihood held from Himself. But it had a higher spiritual mean- 
ing, often alluded to by the prophets, and at length fulfiled by Christ, when 
he recited the words of Isaiah, proclaiming " the acceptable year of the £o?*(7," 
good tidings to the poor, healing to the broken-hearted, deliverance to the 
captive, sight to the blind, and liberty to the oppressed ; and added, "This 
day is this scripture fulfiled in your ears." But its full completion is 
reserved for the end of time, when, at the appearance of the new heavens 
and earth, and of the Tabernacle of God with men, He shall forever do 
away with pain and sorrow, and shall declare, " Behold I make all things 
new." 

II.— The Three Great Historical Festivals. 

In these the whole people were united to seek the face of God, and to 
celebrate His mercies. Thrice in the year, at these feasts, all males were 
required to appear before Jehovah, that is, at the Tabernacle or the Tem- 
ple, not empty-handed, but to make an offering with a joyful heart. No 
age is prescribed : we find Jesus going up with his parents to the Passover 
at the age of twelve, and Samuel still younger. From the examples of 
Hannah and Mary, it appears that devout women went up to one of the 
annual festivals. There is no such requirement with reference to the Day 
of Atonement ; but, viewing it as a public reconciliation of the people with 
Jehovah, preparatory to their most joyful feast, it seems natural to suppose 
that most of those who went up to the Feast of Tabernacles would go early 
enough to be present on the Day of Atonement. These periodical assem- 
blages of the people, including in later times even those who lived in for- 
eign countries, were a powerful means of preserving the unity of the nation. 

These festivals not only commemorated great events in the history of 
Israel, but they had each its significance in reference to God's gifts at the 
seasons of the year. The Passover marked the beginning of the harvest, 
the Pentecost its completion, and the Feast of Tabernacles the vintage and 
the ingathering of all the fruits of the year. "We have here a striking ex- 
ample of the foresight of the Mosaic Jaw in providing for a pastoral people 
festivals suited to their settled condition as agriculturists ; and they were 
wisely arranged, so as not to interfere with the labors of the field. They 
are connected with one another, so as to form one great cycle. The Pass- 
over is in the first month of the sacred year, followed by Pentecost at an 
interval of seven complete weeks ; and the Feast of Tabernacles in the 
seventh month. The days of holy convocation, including the Feast of 
Trumpets and the Day of Atonement, were seven : two at the Passover, one 



APPENDIX. 1089 

at the Pentecost, and two at the Feast of Tabernacles. There is also a 
cycle in their significance. At the Passover the Israelites commemorated 
the beginning of their history as a nation, and at the Feast of Tabernacles 
they marked the joyful contrast between their settlement in a fruitful land 
and their wanderings in the wilderness. So. in their spiritual sense, the 
Passover was signalized by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the beginning 
of the Christian's life, and by Christ's resurrection, as the first-fruits of the 
spiritual harvest of eternal life ; Pentecost by the outpouring of the Spirit 
and the conversion of multitudes, the earnest of the full spiritual harvest of 
the world ; while the Feast of Tabernacles is left as an unfulfilled symbol of 
the full fruition of eternal life in " the rest that remaineth for the people of 
God." 

(1.) The Passover, which was the most solemn of the three festivals, as 
the memorial of the nation's birth and the t} r pe of Christ's death, was kept 
for seven days, from the evening which closed the fourteenth to the end of 
the twenty-first of the first month of the sacred year, A bib or Nisan [April). 
The Paschal Lamb was eaten on the first evening, and unleavened bread 
throughout the week, and the first and last days (the fifteenth and twenty- 
first) were holy convocations. "We have already noticed its first institution 
in Egypt, and its second celebration before Sinai. It was slain in each 
house, and its blood was sprinkled on the door-posts ; the supper was eaten 
by all members of the family, clean and unclean, standing and in haste, and 
without singing ; and there were no days of holy convocation, from the na- 
ture of the case, though their future observance was named in the original 
law. But in the "Perpetual Passover," as arranged by the law and by 
later usage, the Paschal Lamb was selected any time up to the day of the 
supper ; it was sacrificed at the altar of burnt-offering ; its fat was burnt, 
and its blood was sprinkled on the altar ; the supper was eaten only by men, 
and they must be ceremonially clean ; they sat or reclined at the feast, 
which they ate without haste, with various interesting ceremonies, and with 
the accompaniment of the Hallel, or singing of Psalms cxiii. — cxviii. 

In the twelfth and thirteen chapters of Exodus there are not only distinct 
references to the observance of the festival in future ages, but there are 
several injunctions which were evidently not intended for the first Passover, 
and which indeed could not possibly have been observed. In the later 
notices of the festival in the books of the law, there are particulars added 
which appear as modifications of the original institution. Hence it is not 
without reason that the Jewish writers have laid great stress on the distinc- 
tion between "the Egyptian Passover" and "the Perpetual Passover." 
The peculiarities of the Egyptian Passover, which are pointed out by the 
Jewish writers, are, the selection of the lamb on the tenth day of the month, 
the sprinkling of the blood on the lintels and door-posts, the use of hyssop 
in sprinkling, the haste in which the meal was to be eaten, and the restric- 
tion of the abstinence from unleavened bread to a single day. There wa& 
no command to burn the fat on the altar, the pure and impure all partook 
of the paschal meal contrary to the law afterward given ; both men and 
women were then required to partake, but subsequently the command was 
given only to men. Neither the Hallel nor any other hymn was sung, as 
was required in later times in accordance with Is. xxx. 29 ; there were no 
69 



1090 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

days of holy convocation, and the lambs were not slain in the consecrated 
place. 

The following was the general order of the observances of the Passover 
in later times :— On the fourteenth of Nisan every trace of leaven was put 
away from the houses, and on the same day every male Israelite, not labor- 
ing under any bodily infirmity or ceremonial impurity, was commanded to 
appear before the Lord at the national sanctuary with an offering of 
money in proportion to his means. Devout women sometimes attended, as 
is proved by the instances of Hannah and Mary. As the sun was setting, 
the lambs were slain, and the fat and blood given to the priests. The lamb 
was then roasted whole, and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs ; 
no portion of it was to be left until the morning. The same night, after the 
fifteenth of Nisan had commenced, the fat was burned by the priest, and 
the blood sprinkled on the altar. On the fifteenth, the night being passed, 
there was a holy convocation, and during that day no work might be done, 
except the preparation of necessary food. On this and the six following 
days, an offering in addition to the daily sacrifice was made of two young 
bullocks, a ram, and seven lambs of the first year, with meat-offerings, for 
a burnt-offering, and a goat for a sin-offering. On the sixteenth of the 
month, " the morrow after the Sabbath " (i. e., after the day of holy convo- 
cation), the first sheaf of harvest was offered and waved by the priest before 
the Lord, and a male lamb was offered as a burnt-sacrifice with a meat and 
drink-offering. Nothing necessarily distinguished the four following days 
of the festival, except the additional burnt and sin-offerings, and the 
restraint from some kinds of labor. On the seventh day, the twenty-first of 
Nisan, there was a holy convocation, and the day appears to have been one 
of peculiar solemnity. As at all the festivals, cheerfulness was to prevail 
during the whole week, and all care was to be laid aside. 

Such was the general order of this observance ; but further details require 
notice, (a.) The Paschal Lamb. — After the first Passover in Egypt there is 
no trace of the lamb having been selected before it was wanted. In later 
times, we are certain that it was sometimes not provided before the fourteenth 
of the month. The law formally allowed the alternative of a kid, but a lamb 
was preferred, and was probably nearly always chosen. It was to be fault- 
less and a male, in accordance with the established estimate of animal 
perfection. Either the head of the family, or any other person who was not 
ceremonially unclean, took it into the court of the Temple on his shoulders. 
As the paschal lamb could be legally slain, and the blood and fat offered 
only in the national sanctuary, it of course ceased to be offered by the Jews 
after the destruction of Jerusalem. The spring festival of the modern Jews 
strictly consists only of the feast of unleavened bread. 

(6.) The Unleavened Bread. — There is no reason to doubt that the un- 
leavened bread eaten in the Passover, and that used on other religious occa- 
sions, were of the same nature. It might be made of wheat, spelt, barley, 
oats or rye, but not of rice or millet. It appears to have been usually made 
of the finest wheat flour. It was probably formed into dry, thin biscuits, 
not unlike those used by the modern Jews. 

(c.) The Bitter Herbs and the Sauce. — According to the Mishna, the bitter 
herbs might be eudive, chicory, wild lettuce, or nettles. These plants were 



APPENDIX. 1091 

important articles of food to the ancient Egyptians. The sauce, into which 
the herbs, the bread, and the meat were dipped as they were eaten, is not- 
mentioned in the Pentateuch. 

(d.) The Four Cups of Wine. — There is no mention of wine in connection 
with the Passover in the Pentateuch ; but the Mishna strictly enjoins that 
there should never be less than four cups of it provided at the paschal meal 
even of the poorest Israelite. Two of them appear to be distinctly men- 
tioned in Luke xxii. 17, 20. " The cup of blessing " was probably the latter 
one of these, and is generally considered to have been the third of the series, 
after which a grace was said; though from the designation, "cup of the 
Hallel^ it may have been the fourth and last cup. 

(e.) The Hallel. — The service of praise sung at the Passover is not men- 
tioned in the law. The name is contracted from Hallelujah. It consisted 
of the series of Psalms from cxiii. to cxviii. The first portion, comprising 
Ps. cxiii. and cxiv., was sung in the early part of the meal, and the second 
part after the fourth cup of wine. This is supposed to have been the 
" hymn " sung by our Lord and His Apostles. 

(/.) Mode and Order of the Paschal Meal. — Adopting as much from Jewish 
tradition as is not inconsistent or improbable, the following appears to have 
been the usual custom : — All work, except that belonging to a few trades 
connected with daily life, was suspended for some hours before the evening 
of the fourteenth Nisan. It was not lawful to eat any ordinary food after 
midday. No male was admitted to the table unless he was circumcised, 
even if he was the seed of Israel. Neither, according to the letter of the 
law, was any one of either sex admitted who was ceremonially unclean ; bui 
this rule was on special occasions liberally applied. The Rabbimsls ex* 
pressly state that women were permitted, though not commanded, to par- 
take ; but the Karaites, in more recent times, excluded all but full-grown 
men. It was customary for the number of a party to be not less than ten 
When the meal was prepared, the family was placed round the table, the 
paterfamilias taking a place of honor, probably somewhat raised above the 
rest. There is no reason to doubt that the ancient Hebrews sat as they 
were accustomed to do at their ordinary meals. Our Lord and his Apostles 
conformed to the usual custom of their time, and reclined. When the party 
was arranged, the first cup of wine was filled, and a blessing was asked by 
the head of the family on the feast, as well as a special one on the cup. The 
bitter herbs were then placed on the table, and a portion of them eaten, 
either with or without the sauce. The unleavened bread was handed round 
next, and afterward the lamb was placed on the table in front of the head 
of the family. Before the lamb was eaten the second cup of wine was filled, 
and the son, in accordance with Ex. xii. 26, asked his father the meaning 
of the feast. In reply, an account was given of the sufferings of the Israel- 
ites in Egypt, and of their deliverance, with a particular explanation of 
Deut. xxvi. 5, and the first part of the Hallel was sung. This being gone 
through, the lamb was carved and eaten. The third cup of wine was 
poured out and drunk, and soon afterward the fourth. The second part of 
the Hallel was then sung. A fifth wine-cup appears to have been occasion 
ally produced, but, perhaps, only in later times. What was termed the 
greater Hallel was sung on such occasions. The Israelites who lived in the 



1092 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

country appear to have been accommodated at the feast by the inhabitants 
of Jerusalem in their houses, so far as there was room for them. Those who 
could not be received into the city encamped without the walls in tents, as 
the pilgrims now do at Mecca. 

(g.) The first Sheaf of Harvest. — The offering of the Orner, or sheaf, is 
mentioned nowhere in the law except Lev. xxiii. 10-14. It is there com- 
manded that when the Israelites reached the land of promise, they should 
bring, on the sixteenth of the month, " the morrow after the Sabbath " (i. e., 
the day of holy convocation), the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest, to 
be waved by him before the Lord. The sheaf was of barley, as being the 
grain which was first ripe. 

(A.) The Chagigah. — The daily sacrifices are enumerated in the Pentateuch 
only in Num. xxviii. 19-23, but reference is made to them Lev. xxiii. 8. 
Besides these public offerings, there was another sort of sacrifice connected 
with the Passover, as well as with the other great festivals, called in the 
Talmud Chagigah, i. e., "festivity." It was a voluntary peace-offering 
made by private individuals. The victim might be taken either from the 
flock or the herd. It might be either male or female, but it must be without 
blemish. The offerer laid his hand upon its head, and slew it at the door 
of the sanctuary. The blood was sprinkled on the altar, and the fat of the 
inside, with the kidneys, was burned by the priest. The breast was given 
to the priest as a wave-offering, and the right shoulder as a heave-offering. 
What remained of the victim might be eaten by the offerer and his guests on 
the day on which it was slain, and on the day following ; but if any portion 
was left till the third day it was burned. The eating of the Chagigah wras 
an occasion of social festivity connected with the festivals, and especially 
with the Passover. 

(i.) Release of Prisoners. — It is a question whether the release of a pris- 
oner at the Passover was a custom of Roman origin resembling what took 
place at the lectisternium, and, in later times, on the birthday of an 
emperor ; or whether it was an old Hebrew usage belonging to the festival, 
which Pilate allowed the Jews to retain. 

(A\) The Second, or Little Pets sorer.— When the Passover was celebrated 
the second year in the wilderness, certain men were prevented from keeping 
it, owing to their being defiled by contact with a dead body. Being thus 
prevented from obeying the Divine command, they came anxiously to Moses 
to inquire what they should do. He was accordingly instructed to institute 
a second Passover, to be observed on the fourteenth of the following month, 
for the benefit of any who had been hindered from keeping the regular one 
in Nisan. The Talmudists called this the Little Passover. 

(2.) The Pentecost, or Harvest Feast, or Feast of Weeks, may 
be regarded as a supplement to the Passover ; and accordingly its common 
Jewish name is Asartha, the concluding assembly. It lasted only for one 
day ; but the modern Jews extend it over two. The people, having at the 
Passover presented before God the first sheaf of the harvest, departed to 
their homes to gather it in, and then returned to keep the harvest feast be- 
fore Jehovah. From the sixteenth of Nisan seven weeks were reckoned 
inclusively, and the next or fiftieth day was the Day of Pentecost, which 
fell ou the sixth of Sivan (about the end of May). The intervening period 



APPENDIX. 1093 

included the whole of the grain harvest, of which the wheat was the latest 
crop. Its commencement is also marked as from the time when "thou 
beginnest to put the sickle to the corn." 

The Pentecost was the Jewish harvest home, and the people were espe- 
cially exhorted to rejoice before Jehovah with their families, their servants, 
the Levite within their gates, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, in 
the place chosen by God for His name, as they brought a freewill-offering 
of their hand to Jehovah their God. That offering of course included the 
CJiagigah; but the great feature of the celebration was the presentation of 
the two loaves, made from the first-fruits of the wheat-harvest, and leavened,. 
that is, in the state fit for ordinary food. In this point, as contrasted with 
the unleavened bread of the Passover, we see the more homely and social 
nature of the feast ; while its bounty to the poor is connected with the law 
which secured them plenty of gleanings. With the loaves two lambs were 
offered as a peace-offering ; and all were waved before Jehovah, and given 
to the priests : the loaves, being leavened, could not be offered on the altar. 
The other sacrifices were, a burnt-offering of a young bullock, two rams, 
and seven lambs, with a meat and drink-offering, and a kid for a sin-offering. 
Till the pentecostal loaves were offered, the produce of the harvest might 
not be eaten, nor could any other first-fruits be offered. The w r hole cere- 
mony was the completion of that dedication of the harvest to God, as its 
giver, and to whom both the land and the people were holy, which was 
begun by the offering of the wave-sheaf at the Passover. The interval is 
still regarded as a religious season. 

The Pentecost is the only one of the three great feasts which is not men- 
tioned as the memorial of events in the history of the Jews. But such a 
significance has been found in the fact, that the Law was given from Sinai 
on the fiftieth day after the deliverance from Egypt. In the Exodus, the 
people were offered to God, as living first-fruits ; at Sinai their consecration 
to him as a nation was completed. The point is noticed by several of the 
Christian fathers, and the modern Jews connect with the Pentecost special 
thanks for the giving of the Law. 

The typical significance of the Pentecost is made clear from the events of 
the day recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The preceding Passover had 
been marked by the sacrifice upon the cross of the true Paschal Lamb, and 
by his offering to his Father as "the first-fruits of them that slept." The 
Day of Pentecost found his disciples assembled at Jerusalem, like the Israel- 
ites before Sinai, waiting for "the promise of the Father." Again did God 
descend from heaven in fire, to pour forth that Holy Spirit which gives the 
spiritual discernment of his law ; and the converts to Peter's preaching were 
the first-fruits of the spiritual harvest, of which Christ had long before as- 
sured his disciples. Just as the appearance of God on Sinai was the birth- 
day of the Jewish nation, so was that Pentecost the birthday of the Christian 
Church. "As the possession of the Law had completed the deliverance of 
the Hebrew race, wrought by the hand of Moses, so the gift of the Spirit 
perfected the work of Christ in the establishment of his kingdom upon earth. " 
It has been observed that the Pentecost was the last Jewish feast that Paul 
was anxious to keep, and that AVhitsuntide, its successor, was the first an- 
nual festival adopted in the Christian Church. 



1094 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

(3.) The Feast of Tabernacles, or Feast of Ingathering, com- 
pleted the cycle of the festivals of the year, and was celebrated with great 
rejoicings. It was at once a thanksgiving for the harvest, and a commemo- 
ration of the time when the Israelites dwelt in tents during their passage 
through the wilderness. It fell in the autumn, when the whole of the chief 
fruits of the ground, the Corn, the wine, and the oil, were gathered in. Its 
duration was strictly only seven days. But it was followed by a day of 
holy convocation, distinguished by sacrifices of its own, which was sometimes 
spoken of as an eighth day. It lasted from the fifteenth till the twenty-sec- 
ond of the month of Tisri. 

During the seven days the Israelites were commanded to dwell in booths 
or huts (tabernacles) formed of the boughs of trees, etc. The boughs were 
of the olive, pine, myrtle, and other trees with thick foliage. The command 
in Lev. xxiii. 40 is said to have been so understood, that the Israelites, 
from the first day of the feast to the seventh, carried in their hands "the 
fruit" (as in the margin of the A.Y., not branches, as in the text) "of goodly 
trees, with branches of palm-trees, boughs of thick trees, and willows of the 
brook." 

The burnt-offerings of the Feast of Tabernacles were by far more nume- 
rous than those of any other festival. There were offered on each day two 
rams, fourteen lambs, and a kid for a sin-offering. But what was most pe- 
culiar was the arrangement of the sacrifices of bullocks, in all amounting to 
seventy. Thirteen were offered on the first day, twelve on the second, eleven 
on the third, and so on, reducing the number by one each day till the seventh, 
when seven bullocks only were offered. When the Feast of Tabernacles fell 
on a Sabbatical year, portions of the law were read each day in public to 
men, women, children, and strangers. 

There are two particulars in the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles 
which appear to be referred to in the New Testament, but are not noticed 
in the Old. These were, the ceremony of pouring out some water of 
the Pool of Siloam, and the display of some great lights in the court of the 
women. 

We are told that each Israelite, in holiday attire, repaired to the Temple 
with a palm branch in one hand and the citron in the other, at the time 
of the ordinary morning sacrifice. One of the priests fetched some water 
in a golden ewer from the Pool of Siloam. At the top of the brazen altar 
were fixed two silver basins with small openings at the bottom. Wine 
was poured into that on the eastern side, and the water into that on the 
western side, whence it was conducted by pipes into the Cedron. The 
Hallel was then sung. In the evening, both men and women assembled 
in the court of the women, expressly to hold a rejoicing for the draw- 
ing of the water of Siloam. In this court were set up two lofty stands, 
each supporting four great lamps. These were lighted on each night 
of the festival. Many in the assembly carried flambeaux. A body of 
Levites, stationed on the fifteen steps leading up to the women's court, 
played instruments of music, and chanted the fifteen psalms, called in 
the Authorized Version Songs of Degrees. Singing and dancing were 
afterward continued for some time. The same ceremonies in the day, and 
the same joyous meeting in the evening, were renewed on each of the seven 
days. 



APPENDIX. 1095 

It appears to be generally admitted that the words of our Saviour — 
44 If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth 
on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living 
water" — were suggested by the pouring out of the water of Siloam. The 
Jews seem to have regarded the rite as symbolical of the water miracu- 
lously supplied to their fathers from the rock at Meribah. But they also 
gave to it a more strictly spiritual signification, in accordance with the use 
to which our Lord appears to turn it. Maimonides applies to it the very 
passage which appears to be referred to it by our Lord — "Therefore with 
joy shall ye draw water out of the well of salvation." The two meanings 
are of course perfectly harmonious, as is shown by the use which St. Paul 
makes of the historical fact — " they drank of the spiritual rock that followed 
them: and that rock was Christ." It is also probable that our Lord's 
words— "I am the light of the world" — refer to the great lamps of the 

festival. 

III.— The Day of Atonement. 

The Day of Atonement is the one single fast, or day of humiliation 
prescribed by the Mosaic law ; whence it is called the Fast, and by the Tal- 
mudists the Day. It was observed on the tenth of Tisri, the seventh sacred 
and first civil month, five days before the Feast of Tabernacles. Thus it 
was interposed between the Feast of Trumpets, which ushered in the Sab- 
batic month, and the most joyous festival of the year. 

It was kept as a most solemn Sabbath, when all must abstain from work, 
and " afflict their souls " on pain of being " cut off from among the people." 
Its ceremonies signified the public humiliation of the people for all the sins 
of the past year, and the remission of those sins by the atonement which the 
high-priest made within the veil, whither he entered on this day only. All 
the sacrifices of the day were performed by the high-priest himself. He first 
washed his body in the Holy Place, and put on his white linen garments, 
not the robes of state. Coming out of the Tabernacle, he first brought for- 
ward the sacrifices for himself and his family, which were provided at his 
own cost ; a young bullock for a sin-offering, and a ram for a burnt- 
offering. This part of the ceremony set forth the imperfection of the 
Levitical priesthood, even in its highest representative. Sanctified by God 
himself, washed with pure w r ater, and clad in spotless garments, the high- 
priest was the type of the true Intercessor and eternal Priest ; but still, as 
himself a sinner, he was infinitely below the u high-priest needed by us, who 
is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, who needeth not, as those 
lugh-p nests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the 
people's." 

The high-priest then led forward the victims for the people's sins, which 
were provided at the public cost. These were a ram for a burnt-offering, 
and two young goats for a sin-offering. Presenting the two goats before 
Jehovah, at the door of the Tabernacle, he cast lots upon them, the one lot 
being inscribed For Jehovah, the other For Azazel. The latter was 
called the Scape-goat. 

The victims being thus prepared, the high-priest proceeded to offer the 
young bullock as the sin-offering for himself and his family. Having slain 
it at the altar, he took some of its blood, with a censer filled with live coals 



1096 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

from the altar, and a handful of incense : and entering into the Most Holy 
Place, he threw the incense on the coals, thus enveloping the ark in a fra- 
grant cloud, and partially shrouding it from his own eyes lest he should die 
for a profauely-curious gaze, and then sprinkled the blood seven times before 
the mercy-seat, on the east side of the ark. 

The goat "of Jehovah" was then slain as a sin-offering for the people, 
and the high-priest again went into the Most Holy Place and performed the 
same ceremonies with its blood. As he returned through the Holy Place, 
in which no one else was present, he puritied it by sprinkling some of the 
blood of both victims on the altar of incense. This completed the purifica- 
tion of the sanctuary, the second stage of the atonement. 

Then followed the remission of the people's sins by the striking ceremony 
of devoting the Scape-goat, the one on which the lot had fallen "forAzazel." 
The high-priest having laid his hands upon its head, and confessed over it 
the sins of the people, the victim, loaded as it were with those sins, was led 
out, by a man chosen for the purpose, to the wilderness, into "a land not 
inhabited," and there let loose. Unwise curiosity has attempted to follow 
its fate. Scandalized apparently by the idea of its being free to mix with 
other creatures, the Rabbis say that the man who had charge of the goat 
threw him backward from the top of a precipice, and so dashed him to 
pieces, in palpable contradiction of the law. Nor is there any ground for 
the beautiful conception of the great painter, who shows us the Scape-goat 
on the shore of the Dead Sea, expressing the load of its devotion in every 
lineament. The simple meaning of the rite is the full remission of sins; 
and the animal who bore them away was thenceforth as free as the pardoned 
sinner. To trace it, or to endeavor to identify it, would be a profanation ; 
just as the idea of remission is expressed by not inquiring for sins, not find- 
ing them, casting them behind the back. "As far as the east is from the 
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." The "escaped 
goat " must be viewed in connection with the one which gave up its life 
"for Jehovah ;" the death of the one being the price of the liberty of the 
other ; and both together formed a type of Christ, who, by his death aud 
resurrection, "took away the sin of the world." This idea of remission 
seems to be involved in the name to which the Scape-goat was devoted ; 
"for Azazel" signifying M for complete removal." 

The great ceremony of the remission of sins being thus completed, the 
high-priest, after again washing his body in the Holy Place, and resuming 
his robes of state, completed the offering of the slain victims. The two rams 
were burnt upon the altar, with the fat of the two sin-offerings ; but the flesh 
of the latter was carried away and burnt without the camp. Those who 
performed this office, and the man who had led away the Scape-goat, washed 
their bodies and their clothes before returning to camp. 

The significance of these types of the true atonement, not by the blood of 
bulls and goats, but by the precious blood of Christ himself, our high-priest, 
is set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

IV. —Festivals after the Captivity. 
(1.) The Feast of Pukim. or of Lots, was an annual festival insti- 
tuted to commemorate the preservation of the Jews in Persia from 



APPENDIX. 109T 

the massacre with which they were threatened through the machinations 
of Hainan. 

The festival lasted two days, and was regularly observed on the fourteenth 
and fifteenth of Adar. It is not easy to conjecture what may have been the 
ancient mode of observance, so as to havo- given the occasion something of 
the dignity of a national religious festival. According to modern custom, 
as soon as the stars begin to appear, when the fourteenth of the month has 
commeuced, candles are lighted up in token of rejoicing, and the people as- 
semble in the synagogue. After a short prayer and thanksgiving, the read- 
ing of the Book of Esther commences. When the reader comes to the name 
of Hainan the whole congregation cry out, "May his name be blotted out," 
or "Let the name of the ungodly perish." "When the names of the sons of 
Hainan are read, the reader utters them with a continuous enunciation, so 
as to make them into one word, to signify that they were hanged all at once. 
"When the Megillah is read through, the whole congregation exclaim, 
"Cursed be Haman ; blessed be Mordecai ; cursed be Zoresh (the wife of 
Haman) ; blessed be Esther ; cursed be all idolaters ; blessed be all Israelites, 
and blessed be Harbonah, who hanged Haman." In the morning service 
in the synagogue, on the fourteenth, after the prayers, the passage is read 
from the law which relates the destruction of the Amalekites, the people of 
Agag, the supposed ancestors of Haman. The Book of Esther is then read 
again in the same manner, and with the same responses from the congrega- 
tion as on the preceding evening. 

The fourteenth of Adar, as the very day of the deliverance of the Jews, is 
more solemnly kept than the thirteenth. But when the service in tfce syna- 
gogue is over, all give themselves up to merry-making. 

(2.) The Feast of Dedication was the festival instituted to commemo- 
rate the purging of the Temple and the rebuilding of the altar after Judas 
Maccabseus had driven out the Syrians, B. c. 164. It is named only once in 
the Canonical Scriptures, John x. 22. Its institution is recorded in 1 Mace, 
iv. 52-59. It commenced on the twenty-fifth of Chisleu, the anniversary of 
the pollution of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, b. c. 167. Like the 
great Mosaic feasts, it lasted eight days, but it did not require attendance 
at Jerusalem. It was an occasion of much festivity. The writer of 2 Mace, 
tells us that it was celebrated in nearly the same manner as the Feast of 
Tabernacles, with the carrying of branches of trees, and with much singing 
(x. 6, 7). Josephus states that the festival was called "Lights." In the 
Temple at Jerusalem the " Hallel" was sung every day of the feast. 

THE JEWISH CALENDAR. 

The Jewish year being strictly lunar, and the day of the new moon com- 
mon to the preceding and succeeding month, the correspondences with our 
month vary in different years according to the intercalation. Generally 
speaking, the months appended on next page to the Jewish are to be taken with 
ten days (or less) of the preceding month ; but sometimes the overrunning 
is the other way. For example, according to the present calendar of the 
Jews, the 1st of Nisan fell on March 21st, April 7th, and March 28th, in 
1863, 1864, and 1865, respectively. 



1098 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



THE JEWISH CALENDAR. 



Corresponding Dates for Three Years. 



A. M. 5623. 
A. D. 1863. 



Mar. 21 

Apr. 4, 5, 10, 11. 
Apr. 19 

Apr. 20 

Apr. 29 

May 1 

May 17 

May 19 



May 19 

May 24, 25. 
June 17 



June 18. 
July 5. 

July 17 . 
July 26 . 
July 31 . 
Aug. 15. 



Aug. 16.. 
Aug. 22.. 
Sept. 1 . 



A. M. 5624. 
A. d. 1864. 



Apr. 7 

Apr. 21, 22, 27, 28. 



May 7. 
May 24. 



June 5 

June 10, 11 



July 5. 
July 21 . 

Aug. 3. 
Aug. 11. 



Sept. 2. 



A. M. 5625. 
A. D. 1865. 



Mar. 28 

Apr. 11, 12, 17, 18. 



Apr. 27. 
May 14. 



May 26 

May 31, June 1. 



June 25. 
July 11. 

July 24 . 
Aug. 1 . 



Aug. 23. 



Jewish Calendar. 
(In the Sacred Order of the Mouths.) 



I. ABIB or NISAN. April. 
1. New Moon. 

15, 16, 21, 22. Passover Dats, 1, 2, 7, last. 
30. New Moon 

II. JYAR (Yiah). May. 
1. New Moon. 

10. Death of Elijah (Lag B' Omer). Fast. 
12. 

28. Death of Samuel. Fast. 
30. New Moon. 

III. SIVAN. June. 
1. New Moon. 

6, 7. Pentecost or Sebuoth. 
30. New Moon. 

IV. THAMMUZ. July. 
1. New Moon. 

17. Taking of Jerusalem by Titua. Fast. 
V. AB. August. 
1. New Moon. 

9. Destruction of Temple. Fast. 
15. Tubeah. Little Festival. 
30. New Moon. 

VI. ELUL. September. 
1. New Moon. 

7. Dedication of Walls by Nehemiah. Feast. 
17. Expulsion of the Greeks. 



Corresponding Dates for Three Years. 



a. si. 6624. 
a.d. 1863-4. 



Sept. 14, 15. 

Sept. 16 

Sept. 23 

Sept. 28, 29. 

Oct. 1 

Oct. 4 

Oct. 5 

Oct. 6 



Oct. 14. 



Not. 12. 
Dec. 6. 



Dec. 11 . 
Dec. 20 



Jan. 9 . 



1864. 



Feb. 8. 
Feb. 21. 



Mar. 9 

Mar. 21 

Mar. 22, 23. 
Apr. 6 



a. m. 5625. 
A. D. 1864-5. 



Oct. 1, 2... 
Oct. 3... 
Oct. 10..., 
Oct. 15, 16 



Oct. 21 . 

Oct. 22 . 

Oct. 23. 

Oct. 31. 

Nov. 30. 

Dec. 24. 



Dec. 30 .... 

1865. 

Jan. 8 



Jan. 28. 
Feb. 27. 



Mar. 
Mar. 



9 

12,13. 



A. M. 5626. 
A. D. 1865-6. 



Sept. 
Sept. 
Sept. 
Oct. 



21, 22 

24 

30 

5, 6.... 



Oct. 
Oct. 
Oct. 

Oct. 

Nov. 
Dec. 

Dec. 

Dec. 

Jan. 



11. 
12. 
13. 



19. 
13. 



19. 



28 

1866. 
17 



Jewish Calendar. 
(Beginning of Civil Year.) 



VII. TISRI. October. 

1, 2. New Year and New Moou. 

3. Death of Gedaiiali. Fa<t. 
10. Kipur. Day of Atonement. Fast. 
15, 16. Feast of Tabernacles. 
18. Hosauna Rabba. 

21. Feast of Branches or of Palms. 

22. End of Feast of Tabernacles. 

23. Feast of the Law. 

VIII. CHESVAN (Marchesvan). November. 

1. New Moon. 

IX. CHISLEU. December. 

1. New Moon. 
25. Hanuca. Dedication of Temple. 

X. THEBET. January. 
1. New Moon. 

10. Siege of Jerusalem. Fast. 

XI. SEBAT. February. 
1. New Moon. 

XII. ADAR. March. 
1. New Moon. 
14. Little Purim. 
XII* VEADAK (Intercalary). Latter part of 

March and begiuning of April. 
1. New Moon. 

13. Feast of Esther. 

14, 15. Feast of Purim and Shusham Purim. 
Last Day of the Year. 



* The Jewish year contains 354 days, or 12 lunations of the moon ; but in a cycle of 19 years an inter- 
calary month (Yeadar) is seven times introduced to render the average length of the year uearly correct 



APPENDIX. 1099 



LAWS CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL. 

The Political Constitution of the Jewish Commonwealth, as we have seen, 
is founded entirely upon a religious basis. In its form it is Theocratic — 
a monarchy, with Jehovah for the only king, all magistrates and judges 
being his ministers : in its substance and spirit, it is a commonwealth, in the 
strict sense, its object being the highest welfare of the whole people, who 
enjoy equal rights as being all the children of God, and united by the bond 
of holiness. The formal constitution grew out of the wants of the people. 
When the people left Egypt, they could not be called a nation, in the politi- 
cal sense ; but a body of tribes, united by the bonds of grace and religion, 
and especially by u the promise given to the fathers." 

Each of these tribes had its own patriarchal government by the " princes " 
of the tribe, and the "heads " of the respective families, and we find their 
authority subsisting through the whole history of the nation. But no cen- 
tral government was as yet provided. God preserved it in his own hands, 
and committed its administration to Moses as His servant. The people 
were all collected in one encampment around the tabernacle of Jehovah, 
their ever present king. They were commanded by his voice, whether 
directly or through Moses, and their movements were guided by his visible 
signs. If any doubtful case arose of law or policy, there was his oracle to 
be consulted. If any opposition was made to the authority of his minister, 
Jehovah summoned the rebels to his presence at the door of the tabernacle, 
smote them with leprosy, consumed them with pestilence, devoured them 
with fire, or sent them down alive into the pit. Such was the simple con- 
stitution of this period ; God governing by his will, while embodying that 
will in the Law. 

In the second stage of their history, their first settlement in Canaan, the 
constitution was essentially the same. Jehovah was still their king, present 
in his tabernacle to exercise the supreme government, and to give oracles 
for all doubtful cases, and committing the executive power to Joshua, who 
is distinctly recognized as the successor of Moses, only he was a military 
leader instead of a lawgiver. He ends his course, like Moses, by gathering 
the people together at Gilgal, around the sanctuary of Jehovah, and binding 
them once more to the covenant of their God and King. 

All this time, no distinct provision had been made in the Law for any 
successor to the authority of Moses and Joshua, except the prospective law 
of the kingdom, which does not yet come into force. Nor is it easy to deter- 
mine the form which the Theocracy would have assumed, had the people 
remained faithful to its principles ; whether a hierarchy, or a senate of the 
princes, or the government of a chief magistrate, not as a king in his own 
right, but as the vicegerent of Jehovah. By omitting to refer the case to 
the oracle of Jehovah, the nation settled down into a disorderly compound 
of the first and second forms, so far as they had any central government at 
all. But, in truth, the several tribes were so occupied in securing their new 
possessions, that it required a common danger to bring them together at all. 
Meanwhile they neglected the sanctuary, and began to worship the gods of 
the country ; and so their oppressions by the neighboring nations were at 



1100 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

once the fruit of their disunion, and a judicial punishment for their disloy- 
alty to Jehovah. 

The judges were temporary and special deliverers, sent by God to meet 
these several emergencies, not supreme magistrates, succeeding to the 
authority of Moses and Joshua. Their power only extended over portions 
of the country, and some of them were contemporaneous. Still they sup- 
plied, to some extent, the want of a chief magistrate ; and the house of 
Gideon founded a brief dynasty in the centre of the country. But the only 
recognized central authority was still the oracle at Shiloh, which sunk into 
a system of priestly weakness and disorder under Eli and his sons. Even 
while the administration of Samuel gave something like a settled govern- 
ment to the south, there was scope for the irregular exploits of Samson on 
the borders of the Philistines ; and Samuel at last established his authority 
as judge and prophet, but still as the servant of Jehovah, only to see it so 
abused by his sons as to exhaust the patience of the people, who now at 
length demanded a King, after the pattern of the surrouuding nations. 

This demand was treated as an act of treason to Jehovah, who punished 
it by granting such a king as they desired. The government of Saul was an 
experiment, in which the self-will of the king was ever attempting to set 
him free from his true position as the minister of the theocracy ; and Jeho- 
vah's supreme authority was as constantly asserted by the intervention of 
his prophet Samuel, and finally by Saul's disastrous end and the extinction 
of his family. 

The monarchy of the people's own choice being thus cast down, "God 
found David, the son of Jesse, a man after God's own heart" (that is, of 
his own choice) ; and his elevation marks the establishment of the true 
Hebrew monarchy, in which the king, though externally on an equal footing 
with other monarchs, acknowledged himself the servant of Jehovah, and the 
guardian of his law, and submitted to guidance and rebuke by the prophets. 
This constitution was designed to reconcile, in condescension to the wants 
of the people, the government of man with the authority of God, and so to 
be a type of Christ's kingdom. How hard it was for human nature to coo- 
form to this model was proved by Solomon, whose character exhibits both 
the good and bad sides of royal power ; and the same conflict was worked 
out in the separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah ; the former developing 
the consequences of open rebelliou against Jehovah, though checked by the 
prophets, especially Elijah and Elisha, the latter preserving the profession 
of godliness, and having its true spirit from time to time revived by such 
kings as Hezekiah and Josiah, and privileged to continue the line of Mes- 
siah's kingdom, but surely though slowly tending to the retribution of the 
people's original disloyalty, in the captivity at Babylon. The lesson was so 
far effective, that the principle of the theocracy was never again violated till 
Herod's usurpation, which only formed a contrast to the kingdom of Christ 
now "at hand." 

The state of things thus exemplified was provided for in the law of 
Moses; and there can be no better example of the prospective adaptation 
of the law to the people's wants. Even while forbidding them to desire a 
king, because Jehovah was their king already, Moses traced out the consti- 
tution of the future kingdom. The king was to be chosen by God himself. 



APPENDIX. 1101 

The manner in which he was elected and anointed is seen in the cases of 
Saul and David, Solomon, and several of the later kings. The principle of 
a covenant or mutual contract between the king and the people is distinctly 
recognized. 

The positive law of the kingdom was summed up in the one great duty 
of governing according to the law of God, of which the king was to write 
out a copy in a book, and read therein all the days of his life, that by his 
obedience his kingdom and life might be prolonged. He was warned 
against assuming despotic authority over his brethren ; and we find the 
princes and the congregation not only using remonstrance, but exercising 
control over him. He was forbidden to maintain a cavalry force — a check 
on aggressive warfare, designed especially to guard against any attempt to 
return to Egypt. Neither was he to have many wives or great treasures ; 
and the case of Solomon is an example of the fatal effect of transgressing 
this prohibition. To these laws of Moses the first king added the preroga- 
tive of compulsory service, of making war, and of exacting a tithe. From 
the first, the king assumed judicial power, and exercised summary jurisdic- 
tion, even to the extent of deposing the high-priest. In religious matters, 
he might guide the nation, as in building and dedicating the Temple, but 
the attempt to enter the sanctuary was punished as impiety, as in Uzziah's 
case. 

The Princes of the Congregation, or heads of tribes, seem to have always 
retained a certain power in the State. In the desert they appear as repre- 
sentatives of their several tribes. They uuite with Joshua in making the 
treaty with the Gibeonites. Under David they are named next to the cap- 
tains of the host. In later times, as already stated, they are found con- 
trolling the king. 

Tlie Judges. — There can be no doubt that, in the old patriarchal con- 
stitution, justice was administered, as among the Arabs to the present day, 
by the heads of houses or " patriarchal seniors. 1 ' In Egypt these must 
have been the only judges among the people ; and from the important place 
afterward assigned to them, it may be inferred that they never quite for- 
feited this privilege. Their authority was superseded by the mission of 
Moses, for justice was regarded as proceeding from God himself. But when, 
finding the burden of justice too great for him, he appointed judges over 
tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands, with an appeal to himself, these o#i- 
cialjudaes seem to have been chosen out of the former class. Under Joshua 
we find a similar order of judges, forming a supreme court of judicature. 
These seem to be the judges to whom, in conjunction with the priests, there 
was an appeal from the inferior magistrates ; but in what manner they were 
chosen we are not informed, except in the case of the reformation of govern- 
ment by Jehoshaphat. They were required to be able, godly, truthful, and 
incorrupt ; their persons and characters were sacred from attack or slander, 
and they are dignified with the title of "gods." The Levites were associa- 
ted with them, as local judges, from the settlement in Canaan. The 
supreme judicial authority was vested in the high-priest, as the organ for 
" inquiring of Jehovah," and under the monarchy in the king. There seems 
to have been no material distinction between civil and criminal procedure, 
as both fell under the same principle of obedience to God's law. 



1102 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

Tlxe Seventy Elders associated with Moses were a special council, not only 
for the administration of justice, but to assist in the government. They 
must not be confounded with the Sanhedrim, or great ecclesiastical council 
of Seventy (so often mentioned in the New Testament), which was only 
founded after the Captivity. 

LAWS CIVIL. 
It has already been observed that the principles of the civil law of Moses 
are based on the religious position of the people, as the holy children of God 
and brethren to one another. Its details doubtless embodied much of 
the o\d patriarchal law, and in some instances the circumstances are re- 
corded out of which new laws arose. Our limits will permit us to give only 
a brief analysis of these laws, as well as of the criminal laws. Their chief 
provisions may be classified as follows : — 

I. The Law of Persons. 

(a.) Of Father and Son. — The power of a Father to be held sacred ; 
cursing, or smiting (Ex. xxi. 15, 17 ; Lev. xx. 9), or stubborn and wilful 
disobedience, to be considered capital crimes. But uncontrolled power of 
life and death was apparently refused to the father, and vested only in the 
congregation (Deut. xxi. 18-21). 

Bight of the First-born to a double portion of the inheritance not to be set 
aside by partiality (Deut. xxi. 15-17). 

Inheritance by Daughters to be allowed in default of sons, provided that 
heiresses married in their own tribe (Num. xxvii. 6-8 ; comp. xxxvi.). 

Daughters unmarried to be entirely dependent on their father (Num. xxx. 
3-5). 

(6) Husband and Wife. — The power of a Husband to be so great that a 
wife could never be sui juris, or enter independently into any engagement 
even before God (Num. xxx. 6-15). A widow or divorced wife became in- 
dependent, and did not again fall under her father's power (ver. 9). 

Divorce (for uncleanness) allowed, but to be formal and irrevocable (Deut. 
xxiv. 1-4). 

Marriage within certain degrees forbidden (Lev. xviii. etc.). 

A Slave Wife, whether bought or captive, not to be actual property, nor 
to be sold ; if ill-treated, to be, ipso facto, free (Ex. xxi. 7-9 ; Deut. xxi. 
10-14). 

Slander against a wife's virginity to be punished by fine, and by deprival 
of power of divorce ; on the other hand, ante-connubial uncleanness in her 
to be punished by death (Deut. xxii. 13-21). 

The raising up of seed (Levirate law), a formal right to be claimed by the 
widow, under pain of infamy, with a view to preservation of families (Deut. 
xxv. 5-10). 

(c) Master and Sl Ave. — Power of master so far limited, that death 
under actual chastisement was punishable (Ex. xxi. 20) ; and maiming was 
to give liberty ipso facto (ver. 26, 27). 

The Hebrew Slave to be freed at the Sabbatical year, and provided with 
necessaries (his wife and children to go with him only if they came to his 
master with him), unless by his own formal act he consented to be a per- 



APPENDIX. 1103 

petual slave (Ex. xxi. 1-6 ; Deut. xv. 12-18). In any case (it would seem), 
to be freed at the Jubilee (Lev. xxv. 10), with his children. If sold to a resi- 
dent alien, to be always redeemable, at a price proportional to the distance 
of the Jubilee (Lev. xxv. 47-54). 

Foreign Slaves to be held and inherited as property forever (Lev. xxv. 45, 
46) ; and fugitive slaves from foreign nations not to be given up (Deut. 
xxiii. 15). 

(d) Strangers. — They seem never to have been sui juris, or able to pro- 
tect themselves, and accordingly protection and kindness toward them are 
enjoined as a sacred duty (Ex. xxii. 21 ; Lev. xix. 33, 34). These strangers 
correspond to the class afterward called Proselytes. 

II. Law of Things. 

(a) Laws of Land (and Property).— (1.) All Land to be the property of 
God alone, and its holders to be deemed His tenants (Lev. xxv. 23). 

(2.) All sold Land therefore to return to its original oioners at the Jubilee, 
and the price of sale to be calculated accordingly ; and redemption on equita- 
ble terms to be allowed at all times (xxv. 25-27). 

A House sold, to be redeemable within a year ; and, if not redeemed, to 
pass away altogether (xxv. 29, 30). 

But the Houses of the Levites, or those in un walled villages, to be redeema- 
ble at all times, in the same way as land ; and the Levitical suburbs to be 
inalienable (xxv. 31-34). 

(3.) Land or Houses sanctified, or tithes or unclean firstlings, to be capable 
of being redeemed, at the addition of one-fifth their value (calculated accord- 
ing to the distance from the Jubilee-year by the priest) ; if devoted by the 
owner and unredeemed, to be hallowed at the Jubilee forever, and given to 
the priests ; if only by a possessor, to return to the owner at the Jubilee 
(xxvii. 14-34). 

(4.) Inheritance. 



(1) Sons. 

(2) Daughters. 

(3) Brothers. 

(4) Uncles on the father's side. 

(5) Next knixmcn, generally. 

(b) Laws of Debt.— (1.) All Debts (to an Israelite) to be released at the 
7th (Sabbatical) year ; a blessing promised to obedience, and a curse on re- 
fusal to lend (Deut. xv. 1-11). 

(2.) Usury (from Israelites) not to be taken (Ex. xxii. 25-27 ; Deut. xxiii. 
19, 20). 

(3. ) Pledges not to be insolently or ruinously exacted (Deut. xxiv. 6, 10-13, 
17, 18). 

(c) Taxation.— (1.) Census-money, a poll-tax (of a half-shekel) to be paid 
for the service of the tabernacle (Ex. xxx. 12-16). 

All spoil in war to be halved ; of the combatant's half. 5 j th, of the 
people's ^th, to be paid for a u heave-offering " to Jehovah. 
(2.) Tithes. 

(a) Tithes of all produce to be given for maintenance of the Levites 
(Num. xviii. 20-24). 



1104 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 

(Of this, ^th to be paid as a heave-offering for maintenance of 

the priests, Exod. xxx. 24-32.) 
jS) Second Tithe to be bestowed in religious feasting and charity, 

either at the Holy Place, or every 3d year at home (?) (Deut. xiv. 

22-28). 
(y) Firsf-fruits of corn, wine, and oil (at least g^-th, generally ¥ ^th, 

for the priests) to be offered at Jerusalem, with a solemn declaration 

of dependence on God the King of Israel (Deut. xxvi. 1-15 ; Num. 

xviii. 12, 13). 
Firstlings of clean beasts ; the redemption-money (5 shekels) of man, 

and (half-shekel, or one shekel) of unclean beasts, to be given to the 

priests after sacrifice (Xum. xviii. 15-18). 
(3.) Poor Lena. 

(a) Gleanings (in field or vineyard) to be a legal right of the poor 

(Lev. xix. 9, 10 ; Deut. xxiv. 19-22). 
(0) Slight Trespass (eating on the spot) to be allowed as legal (Deut. 

xxiii. 24, 25). 
(y) Second Tithe (see 2 j8) to be given in charity. 
(5) Wages to be paid day by day (Deut. xxiv. 15). 
(4.) Maintenance of Priests (Num. xviii. 8-32). 
(a) Tenth of Levites' Tithe. (See 2 a .) 
(j3) The heave and wave offerings (breast and right shoulder of all 

peace-offerings). 
(y) The meat and sin-offerings to be eaten solemnly, and only in the 

Holy Place. 
(S) First-fruits and redemption-money. (See 2 y.) 
( f ) Price of all devoted things, unless specially given for a sacred ser- 
vice. A man's service, or that of his household, to be redeemed at 

50 shekels for man, 30 for woman, 20 for boy, and 10 for girl. 

LAWS CRIMINAL. 

(a) Offences against God (of the nature of treason). — First Command- 
ment. — Acknowledgment of false gods (Ex. xxii. 20), as e. g., Moloch (Lev. 
xx. 1-5), and generally all idolatry (Deut. xiii., xvii. 2-5). 

Second Commandment. — Witchcraft and false propjhecy (Ex. xxii. 18 ; Deut. 
xviii. 9-22 ; Lev. xix. 31). 

Third Commandment. — Blasphemy (Lev. xxiv. 15, 16). 

Fourth Commandment.— -Sabbath-breaking (Num. xv. 32-36). — PunisJuncnt, 
in all cases, death by stoning. Idolatrous cities to be utterly destroyed. 

(6) Offences against Man. —Fifth Commandment. — Disobedience to, or 
cursing or smiting of parents (Ex. xxi. 15, 17 ; Lev. xx. 9 ; Deut. xxi. 1S- 
21), to be punished by death by stoning, publicly adjudged and inflicted ; so 
also of disobedience to the priests (as judges) or Supreme Judge. — Comp. 1 
K. xxi. 10-14 (Naboth) ; 2 Chr. xxiv. 21 (Zechariah). 

Sixth Commandment. — (1.) Murder, to be punished by death without sanc- 
tuary or reprieve, or satisfaction (Ex. xxi. 12, 14 ; Deut. xix. 11-13). Death 
of a slave actually under the rod to be punished (Ex. xxi. 20, 21). (2.) Death 
by Negligence to be punished by death (Ex. xxi. 28-30). (3.) Accidental 
Homicide, the avenger of blood to be escaped by flight to the cities of refuge 
till the death of the high-priest (Num. xxxv. 9-28 ; Deut. iv. 41-13, xix. 



APPENDIX. 1105 

4-10). (4.) Uncertain Murder, to be expiated by formal disavowal and 
sacrifice by the elders of the nearest city (Deut. xxi. 1-9). (5.) Assault to 
be punished by lex talionis, or damages (Ex. xxi. 18, 19, 22-25 ; Lev. xxiv. 
19, 20). 

Seventh Commandment. — (1.) Adultery to be punished by death of both 
offenders ; the rape of a married or betrothed woman, by death of the offen- 
der (Deut. xxii. 13-27). (2.) Eape or Seduction of an unbetrothed virgin, to 
be compensated by marriage, with dowry (50 shekels), and without power 
of divorce ; or, if she be refused, by payment of full dowry (Ex. xxii. 16, 17 ; 
Deut. xxii. 28, 29). (3.) Unlawful Marriages (incestuous, etc.) to be pun- 
ished, some by death, some by childlessness (Lev. xx.). 

Eighth Commandment. — (1.) Theft to be punished by fourfold or double 
restitution ; a nocturnal robber might be slain as an outlaw (Ex. xxii. 1-4). 
(2.) Trespass and injury of things lent to be compensated (Ex. xxii. 5-15). 
(3.) Perversion of Justice (by bribes, threats, etc.), and especially oppression 
of strangers, strictly forbidden (Ex. xxiii. 9, etc.). (4.) Kidnapping to be 
punished by death (Deut. xxiv. 7). 

Ninth Commandment. — False Witness to be punished by lex talionis (Ex. 
xxiii. 1-3 ; Deut. xix. 16-21). Slander of a wife's chastity by fine, and loss 
of power of divorce (Deut. xxii. 18, 19). 

Tenth Commandment. — The sin of coveting could not be brought under the 
scope of a definite criminal law. But the numerous acts of meanness, injus- 
tice, oppression, and unkindness, which are its consequences, are repeatedly 
forbidden, and their punishment is referred to the curse which God would 
bring on the disobedient. Indeed the final and highest system of rewards 
and punishments is to be found in the "Blessing and the Curse "which 
Moses set before the people. 

70 



THE END. 



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THE OFFICIAL HISTORY 

OF THE 








AND FRANCE. 



By JAMES D, McCABE, Jr., 

Author op " Paris by Sunlight and Gaslight," « Life op William, Emperor op Ger- 
many," " Life of Napoleon III./' Etc., Etc. 

ILLUSTRATED WITH OVER 100 FINE ENGRAVINGS AND MAPS. 

The story told in this work is the most interesting of the century, equaling in attractive- 
ness the history of the deeds of the Great Napoleon. It tells of battles which have shaken 
Europe to its centre, and the consequences of which, even we of the Western World must 
feel ; of patriotism, heroism, military skill and statesmanship, never surpassed in history • 
and of the fall and rise of the mightiest Empires of modern times. The story of this war 
however, is not only interesting as the record of some of the most wonderful military 
achievements that have ever been witnessed on the face of the earth, but is still more instruc- 
tive, as the description of one of the greatest epochs in the history of human civilization. 

The author of this work has traced the causes of the war from their very origin through 
several generations, down to the breaking out of hostilities, in July, 1870. He has given a 
complete and authentic history of the diplomatic events which preceded the declaration of 
war, and has presented them with an impartiality which will place his work upon a lasting 
basis. The causes of the triumph of the German and the failure of the French Armies, are 
set forth with great accuracy, and in detail. The plans of the respective Commanders are 
stated with such clearness that all can easily comprehend them. The narrative of the great 
battles which opened the campaign, and hurled the French back upon the interior of their 
country; the effect of these reverses upon the French Nation; the difficulties and trials, as 
well as the faults and weaknesses of the Imperial Government; the frantic effort to rescue 
the beaten army, and the terrible disaster of Sedan; the capture of the Emperor Napoleon, 
and an entire army; the Revolution in Paris; the rise and formation of the Republic; the 
flight of the Empress from Paris; the siege and surrender of Strasbourg and the frontier 
fortresses of France; the triumphal advance of the German armies to Paris; the efforts of 
Bazaine to escape from Metz ; and the final surrender of his army ; the investment and siege 
of Paris; the detailed history of this great siege, its plans, sorties, battles, successes and 
failures ; the course of events in the beleaguered city, given in the form of a full diary of 
the events of the siege ; the efforts of the Republic to raise the siege; the campaigns on the 
Loire, and in other portions of France ; the continued triumph of the German Armies, and 
the gradual conquest of France ; the reasons which led to the Armistice, and the surrender of 
Paris; the peace negotiations; the treaty; the occupation of Paris; the naval history of the 
war; the diplomatic history on both the German and French sides; the history of the forma- 
tion of the great German Empire ; the proclaiming of King William Emperor, and the reali- 
zation of German Unity, — all these and other topics are related with a graphicness and 
brilliancy which render this the best and most accurate history of this great war published. 

Mr. McCabe was well qualified for the task of writing this work, for besides being a scien- 
tifically educated military critic, already well known for his military histories, he was 
thoroughly informed in the history of the two combatants, and personally familiar by Euro- 
pean travel with many of the localities which have been made memorable by the war. Hie 
great facilities for obtaining the official documents issued by the German and French authori- 
ties, enable him to speak with certainty respecting points which have heretofore been 
shrouded in doubt, and it is believed that he has produced a work which for reliability, im- 
partiality and clearness of statement will never lose its rank as the standard history of the 
war, and which is made complete by the addition of a series of biographies of the German 
and French sovereigns, and the most distinguished leaders, military and civil, on both sides. 

In one large Royal Octavo volume of 740 pages, embellished and illustrated with over 100 
fine Engravings of battle scenes and incidents in the war, life and scenes in Paris, etc. ; and 
furnished to Subscribers, elegantly bound, 

In Fine Morocco Cloth, in English or German at $3.50 per oopy. 

In Fine Leather, (Library Style,) in English or German at 4.00 " M 

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Philadelphia, Pa. ; Chicago, HI. ; St. Louis, Mo. ; Cincinnati, 0.; or Atlanta, Ga. 






NEW ILLUSTRATED 

Devotional & Practical 





CONTAINING THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS, APOCRYPHA, 
CONCORDANCE, PSALMS IN METRE, Etc., Etc. 

With a History of the Translation of the Bible ; over one hundred Scrip* 
ture Illustrations, Valuable Treatises, Chronological and other 
useful Tables, designed to promote and facilitate the 
Study of the Bible. 

Our New Illustrated Bible, with its numerous Tables and Treatises, Photographic Album 
for 16 Portraits, Beautiful Family Record, etc., is the most perfect and comprehensive 
edition ever published. 

The Marginal Readings and References, the Definitions and Explanations, the Scripture 
Illustrations and Descriptions, will prove of inestimable interest and value to every reader, 
and of vast practical assistance and importance to Ministers, Theological Students and 
Bunday-School Teachers. 

It is printed from large, clear type, on fine white paper made expressly for this Biblej 
»nd contains over One Thousand Pages, and over One Hundred Illustrations, and bound 
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a 



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New Milford, Susquehanna Co., Pa., September 17th, 1869* 
NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO. 

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Its numerous marginal references, tables and treatises, definitions and explanations, 
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THE ILLUSTRATED 

HISTORY OF THE BIBLE: 

FROM 

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD 

TO THE CLOSE OE THE APOSTOLIC ERA. 
BY WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D., 

CLASSICAL EXAMINER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, AUTHOR OF "SMITH'S BIBLE DICTIONARY," ETC., ETC. 

ILLUSTRATED WITH 200 FINE ENGRAVINGS AND MAPS. 

It is impossible for the general reader of the Bible to understand that Holy Book intelli- 
gently without constant reference to some reliable commentary ; but in commentaries and 
Seripture manuals, the information relating to the historical portion of the Scriptures is, of 
necessity, meagre, and very little is obtained by such reference. The great want has hith- 
erto been a book which shall make plain the history, manners, customs, laws, observances, 
and geography of the Holy Land, and the nations that have inhabited it, and this in a 
manner which will render it easily understood and convenient for reference. 

We need say nothing in commendation of the author. The fame of his great learning, 
and his perfect familiarity with sacred and classical history is world-wide. His popularity 
is attested by the enormous sale of his books — his " Dictionary of the Bible" having reached 
a sale of over 200,000 copies in America alone. Perhaps there is no man living so tho- 
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The History of the Old Testament is clearly and comprehensively told, and is full of va- 
luable explanations of the customs and laws of the Hebrews and the neighboring nations. 
There is in the Bible an interval between the Old and New Testament Dispensations, which 
is here filled up by a full account of the history of the chosen people from the time of Ezra 
to the birth of Christ. The thrilling story of the Maccabaean Wars of Independence is told 
graphically and accurately, forming one of the most attractive features of the book. 

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work has been condensed from Dean Milman's great "History of the Jews," so that the reader 
is here offered the combined efforts of two such high authorities as Smith and Milman. The 
story of the terrible Siege of Jerusalem by Titus, the destruction of the Temple, the disper- 
sion of the Jews, their efforts to regain their Holy City, their wanderings over the face of the 
earth, and their persecutions and sufferings in strange lands, is told with rigid fidelity to truth. 

The publishers confidently assert that this is the most complete and valuable History of 
the Bible ever issued. It is convenient in form, entertaining as a romance in style, and 
is sure to find its way into every Christian family. It is suited to the comprehension of 
children, while it appeals to the profound wisdom of the most learned. 

All who are interested in increasing the dissemination of sound Biblical knowledge will 
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tion. Agents will find the way prepared for them by the necessity for such a book, and the 
high character and many attractions of this volume, will make the canvass a very simple and 
easy undertaking. The book is perfectly free from sectarian bias, its aim being to pro- 
mote the cause of the one indivisible Church. 

In one large Royal Octavo volume of over 1100 pages, embellished and illnstrated with 200 Fine En- 
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LIFE IN UTAH; 



OR, THE 

MYSTERIES AND CRIMES OF MORMONISM. 

BEING AN EXPOSE 

JF THEIR SECRET RITES AND CEREMONIES; WITH A FULL AND AU- 
THENTIC HISTORY OF POLYGAMY AND THE MORMON SECT 
FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE PRESENT TIME. 

By J. H. BEADLE, 

IDITOR OF THE SALT LAKE REPORTER, AND UTAH CORRESPONDENT OP THE 

CINCINNATI COMMERCIAL. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH 34 FINE ENGRAVINGS. 

For more than thirty years the world has been horrified, startled and perplexed by the 
audacity and success of a sect calling themselves Mormons. Though founded in fraud, 
this sect has succeeded in spite of all opposition, until it is to-day the standing reproach 
of our country. 

Several works have appeared, purporting to be exposures of the secret rites and myste- 
ries of this strange sect, but none have been complete, and few authentic. At present the 
demand for a work of this kind is greatly increased by the determination of the General 
Government to put in force active and decisive measures against those people who calling 
themselves Saints have violated every law of God and man. 

The Author's long residence in Utah ; his position as editor of the leading journal of 
that Territory ,• his spirited defence of the cause of morality against Mormon treason and 
licentiousness, and his own sufferings at their hands, peculiarly qualify him for this task. 
Mormonism has been productive of so many dark and strange mysteries — so many terrible 
crimes that few can comprehend, without an intimate knowledge of it, how much wicked- 
ness it has to answer for, and what a standing menace to order and society it is. 

THE "S7VOE/3C TREATS OF 
Mormonism ; its origin and history, and shows how, founded on imposture, it has grown 
by deceit and crime. It shows how Joe Smith was enabled to deceive and cheat his 
followers ; how by leading them on from crime to crime, and enticing them with licen- 
tious baits, he succeeded in maintaining his influence over them. 
Of crime and lawlessness in Utah ; showing the Mormon leaders in their true light, as 
thieves, murderers and assassins ; how human life is every day taken in Utah ; explain- 
ing and illustrating the infamous doctrine of killing a man to save his soul ; and pre- 
senting a catalogue of crimes and horrors at which even the coolest and calmest reader 
will turn pale. It tells of frightful massacres of whole trains of emigrants, how they are 
murdered for their property, and how that property thus obtained, is seen daily in the 
possession of the Mormon leaders. 
Of the Mormon religion, its infamous and heathenish character, its multitude of gods, its 
abominable doctrines and practices, revealing many strange mysteries and outrageous 
ceremonies. 
Of the Endowment or initiation ceremonies, showing how obscene and disgusting they are ; 
how female modesty is outraged in them, and how licentiousness is taught as a part of 
their religious creed. 
Of the spiritual wife doctrine, showing how a woman may have more than one living hus- 
band and accord to each the same privileges ; how women are debauched and degraded j 
how thoy are required to prostitute themselves "for religion's sake;" showing the terri- 
ble results of polygamy and sin. 

The high praise which this work has received from members of Congress, and Govern- 
ment officials to whom it was submitted, and by whom its publication was urged as a duty 
to the country, stamps it as no ordinary work, but as one of the most powerful and thrilling 
books ever published. It is comprised in one large octavo volume of 540 pages, illustrated 
and embellished with 84 fine engravings, and furnished to subscribers, 

Elegantly bound in Extra Pine English Cloth, - at $2.75 per Copy. 
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THE 

LIGHT IN THE EAST. 

A COMPRBHEHSIYi RELIGIOUS WORK, 

EMBRACING THE LIFE OF 

OUR LORD AM) SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, 

AND THE LLYEfi » HIS HOLY APOSTLES AND EYAN GUIS'. 

BY REV. JOHN FLEETWOOD, D.D. 

Together with the LIVES of the PATRIARCHS and PROPHETS, and of the Mcs 

Eminent Christian MARTYRS, FATHERS and REFORMERS. To 

which is added the HISTORY OF THE JEWS, frcm the 

Earliest Times to the Present Day, and a 

HISTORY OF THE RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS OF THE WOK 

BOTH A>XIEXT ^ZVD MODERN. 






ILLUSTRATED WITH OVZE 200 PIKE ENGRAVINGS. 

The object :; this, work is :: present to the reader a full, comprehensive and intelligent 
account of the Life. Ministry and Sufferings of our Blessed Redeemer. On all sides there 13 
a growing demand for some plain and forcible illustration of the Life and Teachings of Our 
Saviour while on earth, which, unmarred by the errors and theories of MODEK5 philosopht, 
shall serve as an assistance to the rDt of the :h a work is needed 

in ~- - :: strengthen the faith of the aged, and to keep the feet of the young in 

the narrow way. The Lives of the Apostles and Evangelists are given in full, and to them are 
added biographies of the other New Testament characters. It will be found a great f. 
an:e to an intelligent comprehension of Christ's ministry to be thoroughly instructed in the 
ry of those who were his intimate friend3 and the agents of his power. 

The -iarchs and Prophets embrace comprehensive accounts of the most 

aoted Old Testament characters, a knowledge of whose lives is essential to a proper t: 
standing of that of our Saviour, who was the fulfilment of the Old Dispensation. The work 
would be incomplete did it fail to trace the spread of Christianity from the d&. 
Apostles to the modern era. This is done in a series of biographies of the Early Ckr-.- 
Martyr*, Fath'^s and Reformer*, embracing a period from St. John to the Reformatio*, and 
showing how the truth was established and wi: ^ier God. by those noble men. T» 

this is ailed a H *tory of the Jews from the Earliest Time* to the Preseut Day, which is very 
complete and comprehensive, and no more interesting narrative is to be found in the pages 
of history. 

The History of all Religious Denominations comprises a series of comprehensive accounts 
is various forms of truth and error which have prevailed in the world. A proper under- 
standing of this subject will do mu: n denominational asperities and to teach us 
that r : the religious belief of our brethren, which should be the distinguishing mark 
of a The Chronological T iy valuable and interesting, 
and will enable the reader to mark the progress of the outside world, while Israel was work- 
ing out her destiny. 

One of the great merits of this work is that it comprises in one large volume that whieh 
is usually spread out through a great many books, so that it may be said it is in effect a 
complete library of religiou3 literature in itself. The Editor has been extremely desirous 
of including in it all that it is essential for a Christian to know, and muca that is pleasmmt to 
read of. Nuthing necessary to a full and intelligent understanding of the truths of revealed 
religion has been omitted, and the book is perfectly free from sectarian bias, its aim being to 
promote the cause of the one indivisible Church. 

In one large octavo volume of S5^ pages, embellished and illustrated with more than 10# 
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